The Holly and the Dryada Real Ghostbusters novella by

Mary Jean Holmes

originally printed in Shadowstar #29, published Winter 1988original version written December 1987; rewritten February/March 1998

© copyright 1987 & 1998 by Mary Jean Holmes.

This story is a work of fan fiction and in no way intends infringement on any already existingtrademarks or copyrights held by Columbia Pictures, DiC, Dan Aykroyd, or Harold Ramis.

NO PART OF THIS STORY MAY BE REPRODUCED BY OR IN ANY MEDIUM,PRINT OR ELECTRONIC, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR.

Preface

By now, anyone who's read my other RGB fanfic will have realized that I have no affection for the Spud, a.k.a.Slimer. When I first watched RGB 'way back when, the Spud struck me as nothing more than something stuck in byABC as condescension to the kiddie market. They even went and robbed him of what I considered to be one of hisfunniest traits in the movie: the fact that everything he tried to eat fell right through him, which certainly explained hisceaselessly voracious appetite. The more screen time he was given, the more I grew to dislike the critter, and beganto think of ways to get rid of the thing for good.

So why, you may ask, is the little rotter in this story?

Well, anyone who knows me knows how freaky I can get when it comes to incorporating as many details asI possibly can of a given mythos, whether or not they're apocryphal. As I've said, this is one of those universes whereit simply isn't possible to reconcile every single part of every episode that's been written, but, whether I like it or not,Slimer is a consistent part of the RGB mythos. Thus, I figure that I have to at least mention the little scumbucket oncein a while.

But — horror of horrors! — I wound up using him as a little bit more than mere background "scenery" in "TheHolly and the Dryad" because I actually managed to find something for which he was useful: being the scapegoat.And since I needed a scapegoat to make this story work... well, heck, who else would fill this part so nicely? (No, notPeter. The man's got to be sympathetic once in a while, after all....)

So, I suppose this is a warning of sorts: for all the more he's used, the Spud's in this story (for all of about twopages, I think).

Oh, one more thing: The reason the name "Elanor" used in reference to an American Linden is "obscure andnot-so-obscure" is twofold: 1). The blossoms of American Lindens are small , yellow, and five-petaled, somewhatstar-shaped, and 2). Elanor is the name of the small, yellow, star-shaped flowers that grew in the grasses of Lothlorienin Lord of the Rings. Being both a hobbyist botanist and LotR afficionado, it was an obvious little in-joke to me, but Iimagine it might be rather obscure to most normal folk.

When Winston Zeddemore woke up that morning three days before Christmas and looked out a bedroomwindow of the Ghostbusters' firehouse to the street that ran alongside it three stories below, he was looking, almostchild-like, to see if it had snowed overnight, as the local weathercasters had predicted. What he saw were twodisappointments, not one. The mere talcum-powder dusting of the white stuff which had fallen was a mild let-down;seeing The Tree — a young linden which had been planted by the city three years earlier and had struggled to surviveever since — damaged by vandals was more than merely disappointing. Winston found it downright infuriating.

"Blasted punks," he grumbled, squinting to see if more had been hurt than the one broken limb he could spotfrom the window beside Ray's bed. "Don't they know there're few enough trees in this city without idiots going aroundkilling the ones that're left?"

"Something happen to Elanor?" Ray Stantz asked he reluctantly poked his head up from under his covers,hearing his friend's complaint. Since The Tree was the only one within three blocks (having been the sole localsurvivor of that most-recent tree planting attempt), the four ecto-eliminators had dubbed it Elanor, for a variety ofobscure and not-so-obscure reasons. Curious to see what Winston was talking about, Ray wrapped himself in hisblanket and joined Zeddemore at the window.

As Ray pushed the drape aside to improve his view of the street below, watery sunlight sneaked past it andstruck Peter Venkman's bed, disturbing the psychologist's rest. "Closed the blasted drapes," he groaned, hurling apillow at them for emphasis. "It's too early to be getting up."

"It's almost ten o'clock," Winston corrected tartly. "We really should've dragged ourselves out of bed hoursago."

"Not when we didn't sleep half the night," Venkman countered, using the royal plural. He shot a surly glanceat the bed to his right, his expression wishing all manner of ill fortune to be heaped upon the head of its still-sleepingoccupant. "Hey, Egon!" he bellowed as loudly and obnoxiously as possibly, clearly an attempt to aggravate the partnerwho was currently on his black-list. "Rise and shine! It's your turn on KP!"

It was difficult to tell whether or not Spengler actually heard him, so buried was he beneath his various covers.He mumbled inarticulately and said nothing intelligible. One long arm snaked out from under the blankets, fingersfumbling about the night-stand until it found an almost empty box of tissues. They claimed one then withdrew, aninnocuous act followed by a series of short but prodigious damp-sounding sneezes. The hand reappeared briefly todrop the tissue into the already over-full wastebasket beside the bed; its owner then rolled over so that he was facingaway from Peter, and went back to (or continued; it was still hard to tell if he'd ever truly awakened) his sleep.

Though he had expected nothing else, Peter nonetheless scowled at the mummy-swathed physicist. "I'mtelling you, guys," he complained to the others, "it's him or me, tonight. I can't spend another night listening to someonecoughing and sneezing in my ear 'til four in the morning. It's ruining my good looks and sweet disposition."

The laugh Winston tried to smother came out sounding like a half-choked cough. "You must have a lot ofsleepless nights, then," he quipped, unable to pass up the opportunity. "'Specially consider ing the way you snore...."Peter's frown shifted from Egon to target the grinning Zeddemore.

Ray was willing to be helpful in order to maintain peace in the household. "So if being too close to him is aproblem, you can sleep in my bed, tonight. Stuff like that doesn't bother me. Egon really is sick, after all."

Venkman redirected his scowled toward the auburn-haired occultist. "I'm serious. Tonight, one of us is gonnago sleep in the guest room — and I'm warning you right now, it won't be me. My back can't take that bag of rockssomebody palmed off on us as a mattress."

Ray shook his head, exasperated. "Come on, Peter, don't be such a grouch. It's Christmastime, remember?Peace on earth, goodwill toward men, an' all that."

"Yeah," Winston agreed. "Give the poor man a break. He needs to sleep in a decent bed as much as you do,right now."

The psychologist's grin was wicked. "I'd like to give him a break, all right," the very soul of unguentcooperation. "Right around the knees, or maybe his neck...."

Stantz tsked him most disapprovingly. "Aw, c'mon, Pete, it's not Egon's fault he caught the flu. Blame it on thatrefrigerated warehouse job we had last week..."

"...or on getting drenched by passing traffic every time we open the front door," Zeddemore amended. "Ithought the city said they'd get that leaky fire hydrant fixed before Hallowe'en. Here it is, almost Christmas, and we'vestill gotta part the Red Sea out there whenever we leave home." His colorful metaphor referred to the large puddle

that seemed to have become a permanent lake in the gutter just outside their main entrance ever since the hydranton the corner had developed its annoying — and seemingly irreparable — leak.

Peter harrumphed and burrowed back under his blankets. "I blame it on him wanting to get even with me'cause it was one of my dates who gave it to him in the first place," he grumbled.

"Then I'd say turnabout's fair play," Winston grinned.

Ray sighed. "You know Egon isn't like that...."

"Don't count on it. It's the quiet ones you've always gotta look out for." The psychologist peered at the nearestclock, groaned, and then pulled his pillow over his head. "Wake me up in time for lunch," he instructed, trying to getback to sleep.

Ray and Winston didn't even consider arguing with him. They dismissed the incident as nothing more thana product of Peter's usual pre-holiday crankiness, since he was normally far more considerate and solicitous towardhis friends when they were ill. Instead, they returned to their observation of the injured tree below. "That was noaccident," the black man said of the broken branch, annoyed. He moved over slightly to let Stantz have a look forhimself. "Stupid vandals. Wonder how they'd like it if someone came and busted their arms for no good reason?"

"It doesn't look too bad," Ray pronounced after he'd had a moment to assess the situation. "Back on the farm,we had trees that were broken up worse than this by wind-storms or ice-storms, and most of 'em survived." Hewrinkled his nose critically. "That branch'll have to go, though, and the wound'll have to be tarred up, too, or she won'tsurvive the winter."

Winston snorted, half irritation with the vandals, half resignation to the situation. "Terrific. Well, I guess I cantake care of it this morning, if we don't get any calls. I'd hate to see her die just 'cause of some jerks' warped idea offun."

"Why don't you just notify the Public Works Department? That's what they get paid to do, after a ll."

Zeddemore's features twisted expressively. "Sure, and if they get around to fixing Elanor as fast as they'vegotten around to doing something about that blasted hydrant, she'l l be nothing but a dead twig inside a week."

"You've got a point," Ray had to concede. "But I thought you and I were gonna go pick up the Christmas treeafter breakfast. The party for our clients is the day after tomorrow, remember."

Winston shrugged as he went to fetch his c lothes. "I remember. We can still do it after lunch."

"If we don't get called out on a job."

"We haven't gotten a call in the last two days — why should today be any different? Besides, the Christmastree can wait. Elanor can't."

Stantz glanced down at the damaged tree again, then sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Y'know, most peoplein this city wouldn't give a darn...."

"Most people in this city don't appreciate the value of trees, either," Winston replied, his voice muffled by thepajama top he was pulling off over his head. "Heck, half of 'em probably don't even know what a tree looks like."

Ray grinned. "Well, I think they ought to give you an award for this. Outstanding Citizen or LindenHumanitarian of the Year or something."

Zeddemore grunted as he pulled on a sweatshirt. "If Elanor lives," he said simply, "that'll be thanks enoughfor me."

**********

Performing first aid of the injured tree turned out to be a relatively simple matter, as Winston discovered whenhe looked into the matter shortly after breakfast. A brief stop at the nearest library to research the subject of minor treesurgery, a stop at a hardware store to find the appropriate supplies, and a half hour of actual work found the taskcompleted, quite satisfactori ly. When it was done, he stepped back to survey h is handiwork, studied it cri tically, thennodded in approval. As far as he could tell, everything appeared copasetic; he even fancied that the tree itselfapproved of his efforts, since it already seemed healthier, holding its remaining branches a bit higher now that it wasout of pain.

Laughing at this patently ludicrous flight of fancy, Winston decided to ask Ray to check it out when he had achance, since he seemed more familiar with the matter of repairing damaged trees than anyone else he knew. Forthe moment, however, he was satisfied that Elanor would survive, so he collected up his tree-surgery gear and headedback into the warmth of the firehouse. Behind him, he could almost imagine that the wind blowing through the linden'sbare branches was whispering a heartfelt, "Thank you." It was a silly thought, of course, but it made him feel good tothink that the tree, in its own primitive way, understood what he had done for it and appreciated his help.

He wouldn't have thought it so silly a matter if he'd looked back just before rounding the corner, when he wouldhave seen a pair of huge, softly glowing and distinctly inhuman green-gold eyes looking out from the cover of the twigsand branches, watching him go with immense gratitude — and eerily undeniable affection.

**********

When he stepped inside through the main doors of the firehouse, Winston saw none of his friends andco-workers in evidence. Ecto-1 sat alone in the garage; Peter's office was empty, and even their secretary, JanineMelnitz, was not to be found at the reception desk. Curious, he dumped his tree-repair gear into the alreadyoverflowing closet beside their lockers, then headed upstairs to find Ray and inform him that he was now free toresume their scheduled plans for the day. He found Egon first, sitting on the sofa in the rec area, looking disheveled,half-awake, and thoroughly miserable. Though he was still in his nightshirt and wrapped in a blanket, he had a largebook on his lap and several others on the coffee table before him, along with a recently-opened but already well-usedbox of tissues and a wastebasket. From his expression, he had been trying to concentrate on the open book, an effortwhich had failed dismally and had thus prompted h im to contemplate more drastic measures to rid himself of theannoying virus.

"I hate to say it," Winston said, though not unkindly, "but you look terrible, Egon. What're you doing out of bed,anyway? I thought the Doc told you to take it easy for the rest of the week or you'll be asking for nice case ofpneumonia."

"I was trying to," the blond physicist snurfled, pausing to cough and blow his nose, "until Peter decided it wastime to change every piece of bedding in the house."

The dark eyes widened with disbelief. "Peter? Doing housework on his own initiative? What is he, sick?Usually we have to threaten him with pain of death to get him to do even his own fair share."

Spengler was philosophical on the subject. "He says he's doing it to get the place presentable for theChristmas party, but I'm sure this sudden burst of energy has nothing to do with an unprecedented expression ofresponsibility. He's still mad at me for disturbing his sleep the last few nights, and kicking me out of the bedroom ishis version of revenge. Considering how hard it is to get him to do any of the housework, I wasn't about to argue himout of it. Besides, the change of position might encourage my head to clear." He sniffled for emphasis. "God knows,nothing else has worked."

Winston grinned. "Have you thought of giving chicken soup a try? The doctors say it really is good for whatails you...."

"Already beat you to it," he heard Janine call from the kitchen. A moment later, she stepped through thearchway, an appropriately laden tray in hand. "This is the same recipe my grandmother always gave us kids when wewere sick," she explained, "and it worked every time." With one elbow, she shoved aside the books on the table tomake room for the tray.

The sigh-like sound Egon made was genuinely pathetic. "I'm really not hungry, Janine...."

"Tough. Starving yourself isn't gonna help you get better any faster." She plunked herself onto the edge ofthe couch, then picked up both bowl and spoon. "Open up," she commanded.

He had the indiscretion to retort, "But—" and got out no more than that before she shoved the spoon into hismouth, leaving him with the choice to either swallow the soup or choke.

"Y'know," she said sternly as she ladled up a second spoonful, "for a supposedly brilliant scientist, you canbe pretty stupid when you're sick. You're going to eat this, then I'm gonna go upstairs, and if Peter hasn't finished thiscleaning bit of his, I'm gonna throw him down the firepole and do the rest of it myself so you can get back to bed."

She proffered the spoon again. Briefly, Egon frowned at it; then, with woeful submission to the inevitable, hetook both bowl and utensil so that he could feed himself and thus save some small remnants of his already tattereddignity. Though Janine clearly approved of this apparent change of heart, it was equally clear that she intended to sitthere and make sure he ate every last drop. She continued her annoyed harangue against the absent Venkman. "Inever heard of anything so ridiculous, kicking a sick man out of his bed just to get even for something you couldn'thelp, especially when it was his own airheaded bimbo of a girlfriend who brought the bug around in the first place. Heshould be the one sick with it, right now, not you...."

From the way her diatribe was going, Winston decided that he would be best advised to make himself scarcebefore Janine found some reason to chew him out, too. So, sympathizing with his poor blond colleague (who had nochoice but to listen, cooperate, and endure), he retreated back to the garage level, where he found Ray just comingup from the basement.

"How's Elanor?" Stantz asked.

The dark man made an equivocal gesture. "I'm no tree surgeon, so I don't know for sure, but I think I dideverything right. She'll be okay, if we can keep those blasted vandals from doing any more damage. Ready to get theChristmas tree?"

Ray's eyes lit up at the prospect. "You bet — but let's walk, okay? I just finished cleaning Ecto, and I don't wanther to get full of needles and pine tar before the clients come."

"Fine with me," Winston shrugged, and, once the occultist had fetched his winter jacket from his equipmentlocker, they went.

**********

The tree they had ordered weeks before was a Norway spruce, fragrant, short-needled, dark green, and a fulltwelve feet tall, since it was to go in one corner of the high ceilinged lobby/garage as a sort of centerpiece for theirparty. Carrying it back was a little diff icult for two, but not exceptional ly so, since the men were both used to dashingabout after ghosts with fifty-pound nuclear accelerators strapped to their backs. They had to pause only twice beforerounding the corner on the street adjacent to the east side of their headquarters, and then only to make sure they hada good grip on the thing. As they passed Elanor, they were certain they'd make it home without incident, when a largedelivery truck went screaming by mere inches from the curb, plowing right through the large and still-fluid hydrantpuddle and kicking up a tidal wave that drenched both men and their burden.

"Idiot!" Winston, who was in the lead, bellowed after the trucker while Ray coughed out the lungful of waterhe'd accidentally inhaled. "Come on back here, chicken-head, an' we'll do a little target practice on your tires!" Thedriver, totally oblivious to his shouts, didn't so much as slow down. In a moment, he went screaming around anothercorner and out of sight.

Zeddemore fumed, temporarily leaned the tree against Elanor while he checked on Ray, who'd dropped hisend when he'd taken the cold water — which he was still coughing away — smack in the face. "Are you all right?" heasked solicitously. "That creep didn't hit you with any lumps of ice, did he?"

"No," Stantz wheezed, "just slush. I'm fine, Winston, trust me. I'll be all right just as soon as we get inside andget into something dry."

"Good idea. The last thing we need is to come down with Egon's flu for Christmas just 'cause some jerkcouldn't watch where he's driving. You sure you can manage your end of things? I'll go get Peter to help, if you can't."

"And be stuck with listening to him crab about how much he doesn't like Christmas or Christmas trees for therest of the day? No thanks. Give me a second to get th is gunk out of my eyes, and I'll get it."

Attempting to be helpful, Winston rummaged through the pockets of his jacket and came up with a dryhandkerchief, old and rumpled, but clean and much better than the soaked sleeve upon which Ray had been tryingto wipe his eyes. As he stepped around the tree to offer the cloth to his partner, he turned his back on Elanor. Behindhim, the same glow he had missed earlier again shimmered among the branches, a pair of greenish lights thatadoringly watched him as he handed his friend the handkerchief, then disappeared as they slipped down the smoothgray trunk and into the boughs of the waiting spruce. Neither he nor Ray saw the incident, so neither eliminator couldhave known that when they picked up the bundled evergreen and resumed their trip home, they also picked up a smallsupernatural passenger.

**********

When they finally got themselves and their burden inside, they found Peter, not Janine, sitting at thereceptionist's desk, wearing an unfathomably blank expression as he stared off into space, seemingly in a state ofshock. "What's the matter, Peter?" Winston asked as they set the tree alongside Ecto-1, a temporary resting placeuntil they got changed and fetched the decorations from storage. "You look like someone just told you your best friendhad died."

The psychologist blinked at him for a few silent moments before responding. "Janine threw me out of thebunkroom," he said, aghast. "Came after me with a broom and everything. Me!" He sounded thoroughly incapable ofcomprehending the woman's unprecedented belligerence.

Zeddemore made a soft sound that was half-laugh, half-chiding. "Do you blame her? You've gotta admit, Pete,that was a pretty rotten thing you did, kicking a sick man outta bed just 'cause you were miffed with him."

Venkman squirmed, looking remarkably — and sincerely — regretful. "Yeah, well.... I guess that wasn't verynice, but she won't even let me go and apologize. She throws things at me when I even look up the stairs to the thirdfloor." He shook his head, utterly incredulous.

Ray's laughter was more pronounced. "You know the way she gets when she thinks you've picked on Egontoo much, and you have been at him 'way too much, the last few days. You really k inda asked for it, y'know."

"I didn't think I was bad enough to warrant this. And I wouldn't laugh, if I were you. She's mad enough rightnow to keep all of us out of there, and from the way you two look, I don't think you're gonna enjoy spending the restof the day soaking wet."

Winston's smile was conspiratorial. "Leave it to me," he promised. "I'l l get her down."

"How?" Peter wanted to know, having already exhausted all his ideas for achieving that very end.

Zeddemore shrugged. "You know how much she likes Christmas. All we have to do is tell her we need herhelp decorating the tree, and she'll come down, no problem. Think you can help us and find the tree stand while weget into something dry?"

The skeptic eyed the still-bundled spruce with a wary expression. Even though he'd begun to get over hisyears-long dislike of the holiday season, lingering memories of unpleasant Christmases past continued to haunt him.They became fainter and fain ter with each passing year, but the old reflexes were hard to banish. "I don't know...."

"Aw, c'mon, Peter," Ray urged amiably, "it's not like we're asking you to do the whole thing yourself. Besides,I'd think it'd be worth that much to you for us to get Janine off your back — wouldn't you?"

Venkman still had his doubts, but they were minor, so, in the best spirit of the season he could muster, herelented.

**********

He ended up doing more than just that, since it took all three of them plus Janine to get the tall and awkwardtree seated properly in the stand. Afterwards, they found that a ladder was required to reach the highest branches,and he was pressed into service, holding it steady while Janine — who was the lightest and therefore the least likelyto tip it over when leaning — climbed to the top to hang the lights and ornaments and tinsel. At first, he groused overthis additional levy on his time, but as things progressed and the tree started looking prettier and prettier, hisgrievances dwindled to an occasional grunt or grumble, and eventually stopped altogether. Though there was a certainamount of genuine justification for Peter's oft-proclaimed dislike of the Christmas season, much of it was now just forshow, the Scrooge-like facade he felt obliged to wear even though his friends knew he had outgrown his childhoodattitudes. He made no protest when Janine asked him to pass tinsel or ornaments to her; he even started hummingalong with the holiday music the receptionist was playing on the radio at her desk, though so quietly, no one else couldhear.

So it was that Peter caused no trouble in the process of putting up the tree. That honor fell on the virtuallynon-existent shoulders of their spud-in-residence, Slimer.

When they were about halfway done, he (she? It? Determining the gender of a ghost whose one true love wasfood was nigh onto impossible) appeared from whatever corner he'd been lurking in, drawn out by the curious activityin which his... owners? ...were involved. He showed particular interest in the boxes and boxes of shiny glassornaments waiting to be hung; when that portion of the process was reached, he wanted very much to help, andstarted plucking them from their boxes and carrying them up to Janine, since he figured she needed his help the most.

"Eeeyuck!" was her immediate exclamation when she blindly reached down, expecting Peter to hand her thenext ornament and was instead handed a glass ball coated with a considerable amount of ectoplasmic goo. "That'sabsolutely disgusting!" she scolded. "Who told you you could help, anyway, Slimer?"

The little green specter shrugged and babbled, not a word of which was intelligible; nonetheless, he managedto get across that this was an idea he had gotten entirely on his own.

"Well, stop it," he was told in no uncertain terms. "I don't care if this is Ghostbusters HQ — Christmasornaments are supposed to shiny, not slimy."

Properly chastised, the ghost withdrew, looking thoroughly dejected until he came up with a new way to lenda hand. A moment later, he was "helping" Ray distribute tinsel around the lowest branches. As he came around to thespot Slimer had done, Stantz grimaced.

"You can't help here, e ither, Slimer," he said, though not without some regret for disappointing the spook,whose heart — if such it could be called — was in the right place. "This has gotta look good for the party, and I'm afraidmost of our clients wouldn't understand a tree dripping with ectoplasm instead of tinsel."

He started cleaning up, pulling off the gummy strands of silver foil as the ghost again backed off, looking evenmore forlorn. He brightened once more as he came up with a third idea, which was quashed the second he headedin Winston's direction.

"Oh, no," Zeddemore, who was in the process of clipping lights to branches, warned. "You get slime all overthese, and you could short out the whole lot of 'em. Why don't you be a good little ghost and just sit back and watch?"

"You said it," Peter piped up, in full agreement. "If you really want to help, Spud, don't help. You're just makinga mess of things."

This final rejection — especially since it came from one he all but worshiped — was more than Slimer couldhandle. Whimpering and pouting and looking totally put out by their universal scorn for his well-intended assists, hefloated up through the ceiling, sulking."

Ray saw it, and felt terrible. He tended to regard the ghost as a sometimes ill-mannered pet, and thus felt asif he'd just whipped a poor, ignorant puppy. "Maybe we could've found something he could do without messing up toobadly," he reflected. "After all, he only wanted to help."

Venkman snorted. "Yeah, like Typhoid Mary just wanted to help find homes for a few vagrant germs. He'sabout as useful."

"We'll find something for him to do later," Winston promised. "But you said it yourself, Ray: The tree's gottalook good for the clients."

The occultist sighed. "I suppose so. I just wish we didn't have to send him out feel ing so bad."

"He'll get over it. There, that should do it for the lights. Want to hand me some of those ornaments, Peter?She's looking a little bare on this side...."

Winston was paying more attention to the box he was being handed than to the tree, so he didn't notice itwhen an extra pair of green l ights flared amid the branches, thrilled by his use of the pronoun "she."

**********

It took nearly four hours to decorate the tree in what they all considered to be adequate style. Hence, it wasn'tat all surprising that, when they came down the following morning and found most of the ornaments and tinselscattered across the garage floor, ripped, broken, and covered with what appeared to be sticky, half-dried ectoplasm,they were all furious — and knew exactly who to blame.

"I know Slimer was upset with us for not letting him help," Ray commented as he took stock of the debris, "butthis...!" He swept one arm wide to indicate the mess strewn all over the garage and reception area. "There's no excusefor this!"

"Yeah," Peter agreed, probably the most upset of the lot, since his liking for the holiday was still tenuous, andanything that went wrong tended to make him fee l that things were about to revert to the generally unpleasant formhe'd known as a boy. "Just like there's no excuse for the Spud, ei ther."

"This is pretty irrational behavior, even for him," Ray had to admit.

"That's what I keep telling you guys, but you never listen. Where is the little homewrecker, anyway?"

"I haven't seen him around since he went off to sulk, yesterday," Winston provided. "Maybe this is his way ofgetting even."

Venkman snorted. "If he wanted to get even, he should've stuck slime in all our shoes like he usually does,instead of trashing all the decorations."

Janine, who had finally managed to stir herself away from staring at the carnage which had met her eyes themoment she'd arrived for work, moved behind her desk and found the computer monitor plastered with sticky tinsel."It's bad enough he had to pull everything off the tree,' she moaned, grimacing in disgust as she attempted to removethe gooey mess, "but did he have to splatter it all over the place, too?"

"It's pretty bad," Zeddemore announced after surveying what was left of their handiwork, "but the tree itselfwasn't messed up very much, and the lights are still okay. Once we clean up the stuff on the floor, we should be ableto do it over again."

"And pay for new ornaments, too," Peter noted sourly, always unhappy with the notion of unexpectedexpenditures, especially when they were made necessary by Slimer.

Janine and Winston took care of redecorating the tree while Ray and Peter finished whatever housecleaningneeded to be done before the party. They were very proud of themselves for the miracle they managed to work withthe meager decorations that were all they could find in the stores two days before Christmas — until the next morning,when they again found some of the ornaments broken and sticky on the garage floor.

"I'm beginning to think he'd got something against me personally," Janine lamented as she picked up theremains of what had once been a delicate blown-glass snowflake. "All of these ornaments are ones I picked out andhung up. Do you think maybe Slimer's trying to tell me something?"

"Not unless he came up with some reason to get mad at you between yesterday and today," Ray observed,clicking his tongue at the mess. "He wasn't quite so selective the first time. You didn't go after him with a broom likeyou did Peter, did you?"

The receptionist shook her head. "No — not that I mightn't've been tempted, too, after that first mess, but Ididn't see him at all yesterday."

"It's not as bad as last time," Winston sighed as he again looked over the damage. "Just those couple dozenornaments — but I don't know where we're gonna find more, not on Christmas Eve. The stores were already pickedpretty clean when we went to buy 'em yesterday."

"It's bad enough," Peter growled, inspecting one of the stickier shards. "I say we toss that little traitor right outon his ear. I don't care if he's mad at us or not; there's just no excuse for this, not two days in a row."

"We can't just throw him out onto the streets," Ray insisted, although he had to admit this was exceptionallybad behavior, even for their gluttonous resident ghost. "Who'd take care of him?"

"He took care of himself at the Sedgewick just fine for years before we came along. I say we send him backagain. He can fend for himself."

"But we can't do that! They paid us to get rid of him...."

Egon — who, sick though he still was, had had his curiosity piqued by all the fracas — studied the scene ofthe crime from his vantage on the staircase. "More to the point," he observed, sniffling, "we can't turn him loose onan unsuspecting public."

"What about turning him loose on an unsuspecting us?" Peter demanded hotly. "Remember, I'm apsychologist — and from the way he's been acting, I'd say our little spud's developed some serious neurotic problems.What if he's turned bad on us or something? What are we supposed to do, put up with him making a wreck out of thewhole firehouse?"

The blond scientist shrugged. "If you're convinced he really has developed sociopathic tendencies, then theonly option we have is to trap him and put him back into the containment unit."

"I wouldn't exactly call it sociopathic," Ray said, uncomfortable with the term.

"I would," Peter piped up immediately. "What else can you call a ghost who prefers hanging around with andtrying to help a bunch a living people who make their living get rid of types like him?"

"Well, I still don't think this means we should get rid of him. He may be a ghost, but he's still our f riend...."

"Our pain in the neck, you mean," Venkman grumbled.

"Maybe Peter's right," Janine intervened. "This just isn't like Slimer, going out of his way to do somethingwrong when he knows it'll get everyone mad at him. But there's got to be something we can do to set him straightwithout stuffing him into the grid. It is Christmas, after all."

"Maybe all we have to do is threaten him with it," Winston suggested. "You know how much he hated it in therethe first time."

Peter wasn't quite convinced. "But what if it doesn't work? You can't send a ghost to an analyst, y'know. Anddon't even ask me to try."

Ray sighed, having been thinking just that. "I don't see that we've got too many other options, then. If it's achoice between threatening him or putting him straight into containment, no questions asked, I'm willing to give himone last chance." He glanced toward the ceiling and the ghost's presumed location; even when he couldn't be found,Slimer was never far from the kitchen. He shook his head. "I'll go find him...."

"No, let me do it," Peter interrupted. "You're too much of a softie. He knows I don't like him very much. If hehears it from me, he'll know we mean business." His wicked grin gave ample proof of it.

"That's for sure," Janine sniffed dryly. She turned to Winston as Venkman headed upstairs in search of theirmisbehaving specter. "Should I go out and try to find some more ornaments?"

"No, Ray and I can do it. We were gonna go pick up some stuff for the party, anyway, so we might as well savetime and kill two birds with one stone. The guests'll start showing up around three, y'know, and it's almost eleven now.Just keep an eye on that tree and make sure Slimer doesn't try anything else while we're gone."

"He wouldn't dare," she felt certain, watching him and Ray as they fetched their coats, headed for the car, andclimbed in. A blast of cold wind blew through the garage as they pulled out, sending waves of half-frozen watersplashing in either direction as they plowed through the omnipresent puddle outside. Janine slapped one hand atopa pile of papers to keep them from scattering in the sudden gust. She shivered, and went to close the vehicle doors.

"Shouldn't you be back in bed?" she asked Egon, who was still on the sta ircase, contemplating the odd eventssurrounding the Christmas tree. "Standing in this drafty garage in your pajamas can't be good for you. You aren't evenwearing slippers...."

"I can't stay in bed forever," he said logically, "and a few seconds in a draft isn't going to hurt me, flu or no flu."That reasonable statement was immediately belied by a sudden and uncontrollable fit of coughing and sneezing.

The expression she threw him was as wry as her inflections. "Right," she drawled, seeing through his flimsyargument. She started up the steps, taking his elbow and urging him to follow as she passed by. "Come on, then, atleast get back upstairs where it's warmer. I'll bet you haven't eaten anything since lunch yesterday, either."

"Untrue. Peter made supper last night."

"Yeah? Well, I know what he considers cooking, and half a sandwich and a glass of orange juice do not asupper make, especially when you skip breakfast like you did this morning — didn't you?"

The physicist sighed, which was in itself an answer. "I appreciate your concern, Janine, really, but I can takecare of myself ."

"Not from everything I've seen, you can't."

"I've been doing it for years. You don't have to do this...."

Egon's voice faded to a distant murmur as they reached the top of the stairs and moved into the rec room,continuing from there into the kitchen. Thus, no one was present to see the green eyes once more come to life amidthe boughs of the Christmas tree, nor did they see them slip down the trunk and across the cold garage floor, pausingto investigate Winston's equipment locker before moving up the stairs to the living quarters beyond.

***********

If it had been any of her other employers — especially Peter — whose health was in question, Janine wouldlikely have gone right back to her desk after making certain they'd returned to bed, but since the patient was the objectof her all-too-often unrequited affections, she made a point of seeing to it that he was given a proper, if somewhatearly, lunch before returning to the less rewarding job of manning their currently quiet business phone. After offeringtoken protest, Egon surrendered and let her do as she would, since he knew she wouldn't give in. Besides, his senseof taste was finally beginning to come back, and if capitulation meant getting an edible meal rather than risking arelapse with his own pathetic culinary talents, then surrender was the wisest and most attractive course of action. Thefact that he was beginning to enjoy her attentions had, of course, no bearing whatsoever on his decision.

Once she'd convinced herself that the lunch she'd made wouldn't go to waste, Janine left the kitchen andreturned to work, exacting from the physicist a promise that he would go straight to bed after he'd eaten and takenhis medications. When he was finished with it, Egon dutifully cleaned up after himself (healthy or sick, cockroacheswere something he tried his best to discourage) and was about to head upstairs when his left foot encountered an odddribble of something on the floor, running from the lower staircase across the rec-room and up the spiral stairs to the

third level. Had he been wearing slippers, he would not have noticed it, but against the skin of his bare foot, it felt coldand sticky, like syrup. Curious and reasonably convinced it wasn't something Slimer had left behind — apparently,the little ghost was either so afraid or so miffed, Peter still hadn't been able to find him to deliver his ultimatum — hefollowed it up to the third floor, since he was headed in that direction, anyway.

The trail led him into the bedroom, where it went straight for W inston's corner of the room, leaving its tackytrace all over his bed, dresser, closet, and other belongings before moving toward the firepole-well, where it vanished.For several minutes, the physicist studied the path of the dribble most carefully, then crouched down to have a closerlook at the stuff. An adjustment of his glasses confirmed his more distant initia l observation. It certainly didn't look quitelike the Spud's brand of ectoplasm; in fact, when he touched a patch of it, he found that it didn't feel at all like ghostlyresidue, being much more viscous and far less slimy than the paranormal norm. Most spectral ectoplasm was virtuallyodorless, for all that it was considerably more revolting; this substance had a strong and very definite scent, that of....

"Wood," he murmured to himself identifying it instantly. For a moment, he studied his fingers, glanced againat the route the spoor had taken, squinted more closely at it, then coupled this physical evidence with all the strangeevents of the past two days. Something was going on around here, all right, and this new development only reinforcedwhat he'd suspected from the first: that Slimer and his supposedly errant behavior had absolutely nothing to do wi thit. "Fascinating," he opined and, forgetting all about his malady and the medicine he was supposed to be taking, hewent to fetch the equipment he would need to prove whether or not the theory he had devised was correct.

**********

While he was in the lab, examining the residue under a microscope, Winston and Ray returned with severalbags and boxes of food and beverages for the party and a single paper sack full of the unbreakable satin-typeornaments they'd found at the supermarket. Stantz was in the process of unloading the groceries when Winston, aboutto hang his coat in his locker, let loose an exclamation of irr itation and disgust.

"That does it!" he bellowed, shaking the hand that had grasped the doorhandle in an attempt to rid himselfof the gunk clinging to his fingers. "Where's that blasted spud? I swear, I'm gonna wring every drop of ectoplasm outtahim with my bare hands!"

Peter, whose attention had been roused at the sound of Zeddemore's first shout, came out from his office,happy to hear someone else expressing his personal feelings toward the green nuisance. "What happened this time?"

As explanation, the dark man gestured furiously toward his locker, which had been visibly coated with a filmof supernatural g lop. "This," he growled. "I thought you were supposed to deliver him the ul timatum, Peter. Is this whatwe get for showing him we mean business?"

"I didn't give it to him," Venkman confessed, not without regret. "I couldn't even find Slimer. But maybe afterthis, you guys'll go along with me, and we can shove him into conta inment before the guests arrive."

"I dunno," Ray said, head shaking. "That doesn't sound fair. Look, he didn't even get all our lockers, onlyWinston's."

Zeddemore groaned. "Oh, great! Now he's got a private vendetta going against me...!"

"No, he doesn't," Egon corrected, coming down the stairs, PKE meter in hand.

Everyone looked up, surprised, Winston not the least of al l. "He doesn't?" he echoed, frowning withpuzzlement.

"What are you doing back down here?" Janine demanded. "I thought you said you'd finish your lunch, takeyour next dose of medicine, and go back to bed."

"I was going to," the physicist admitted, "but that was before I found a trai l of this same residue that hasWinston so upset."

"You mean there's more of this upstairs?" Zeddemore was appalled.

"Yes — quite a bit, in fact," Egon replied with the casual aplomb of a fascinated researcher.

Peter groaned. "That's just what we need, Slimer-gunk all over the place — and just before a b ig party."

"But it isn't Slimer's," he was again corrected. "And it isn't all over the place, just all over one distinct path, andWinston's belongings."

"What?!" The black man was now more than merely appalled. "All over my stuff? What does that spud thinkhe's getting away with...?"

"Nothing, I'm sure. I keep trying to tell you, this residue doesn't belong to Slimer. Look at it closely — smellit."

Venkman gr imaced. "No, thanks. I just had a big lunch."

Ray, however, was sufficiently intrigued by his tallest partner's comments to do just that. He touched the stickydoorknob, rubbed the residue between his fingers, and sniffed it experimentally. His eyes instantly widened, startled."Why, you're right, Egon — that isn't Slimer's slime. It almost smel ls like...." He hesitated, not quite ab le to peg it.

Spengler had no such problem. "Like wood. Or, more precisely, tree sap."

Winston's dark brows arched expressively. "Tree sap? You mean like—" He almost hated to say it. "—like thetar off a pine tree?"

"Of that same general nature," Egon confirmed, "but definitely not of that particular family."

He sighed, relieved. "That's good. For a minute there, I thought this might be stuff from the Christmas tree thatwe'd tracked all over the place."

Peter, on the other hand, was anything but relieved. "But if isn't from the tree, where is it from?"

"That's exactly why I'm trying to find out," the physicist replied. He resumed following the tacky trail back towhat he hoped would be its source.

This time, it was Ray's turn to be confused. "With a PKE meter? Isn't that like trying to catch a mouse with aghost trap?"

Egon didn't look up as he answered. 'If we were trying to locate a squirrel or a chipmunk, yes. But the visitorI'm looking for happens to be distinctly less mundane in nature."

That explained absolutely nothing to most of the others. Totally lost, Winston glanced at Janine, who shruggedand glanced at Peter, who made an odd face, then looked back at Winston. "What did you say?" the last in the circleasked.

Spengler halted when the path ended, at the foot of the Christmas tree. He looked up at it, not admiring itsbeauty but subjecting it to intense scientific scrutiny. "I'm getting definite supernatural readings from the residue, andthe tree. I suspect when you brought it home, you also brought along an unexpected guest. Take a good close lookat it," he suggested, pointing to the stuff on the floor. "That's not just a trail of sap. It's footprints."

None of the others were about to believe that patently absurd claim until they bent down and had a look forthemselves. Sure enough, the shiny spots were in the shape of tiny feet, tracks that were remarkably human in nature,save for the fact that they had four toes instead of five. For several moments, they stood there staring at the prints witha mixture of fascination and incredulous awe.

Eventually, Winston broke the silence. "Oh, man, this is just too weird," he said, head shaking. "What sort ofspook have we got here, anyway?"

"It's not a ghost," Egon provided confidently. "According to my preliminary analysis, all evidence would seemto indicate that our guest is a dryad."

"A what?" The question came from the same three who had recently traded glances.

"A dryad," Ray repeated, his confusion suddenly evaporated. "A wood-nymph. They're spirits who live in trees,and their lives are bound up with the tree they inhabit." A small frown narrowed his brown eyes. "But if you're right,Egon, then why doesn't this dryad's trail have a scent like an evergreen? This is a spruce tree, after all."

"Yeah," Janine chimed in, "and why does it keep trashing our Christmas decorations?"

"Not to mention gumming up all my stuff," W inston added, eyeing his locker most unhappily.

The blond scientist said nothing for a few moments; he continued to study the tree and his meter. Then, hescratched his chin and shrugged. "I'm not one hundred percent sure of this, but I believe this dryad is not the dryadwho belongs to this specific tree."

"Then what is it?"

"Maybe it's a dryad condominium," Peter quipped. "Y'know, a time-share tree, and this little sprite's here onvacation."

"Not possible," Egon stated flatly. "As Ray said, the life of a dryad is bound up with its host-tree. If this one hadhad a resident dryad, it would have died the instant the tree was chopped down, or very soon thereafter. If it had anysense at all, it would have vacated as soon as it recognized a threat, and found another host."

The occultist nodded, almost regretful. "That's right. But if the dryad that belongs here is gone, where did thisone come from? And why would it pick a tree like this to move into?"

"Well," Spengler confessed, pausing to cough, "I do have a theory...." His voice faded as his thoughtswandered into deeper contemplation of their unusual situation.

When he didn't launch into an immediate explanation, Peter prompted him, puckishly. "Are you going to shareit with the rest of us, Spengs, or do we have to play Twenty Questions?"

Thus prodded, Egon returned to the here-and-now and got straight to the point. "I think she might be Elanor."

His three partners were so startled, they could do nothing for a minute but stand there with their mouthshanging open. Janine, however, was considerably more garrulous. "Elanor?" she repeated, puzzled. "Who's Elanor?"

Venkman was next to find his voice. "You honestly think we've got a spook from that tree around the cornerliving in our Christmas tree?" He shook his head, sighing with sympathy for his poor, deranged colleague. "I thinkmaybe this flu's cooked a few too many of your brain-cells, Egon. That stunted excuse for a tree couldn't possibly haveits own nymph — and even if it did, she'd have to be pretty hideous—"

A red glass ball suddenly came flying from the upper branches of the tree; it hit the skeptic on the nose,bounced off, and shattered on the floor with a loud pop!

"I rest my case," the physicist announced dryly.

"I don't get this," Winston had to admit, no more greatly enlightened than before. "Why would Elanor suddenlydecide to give up a healthy tree and move into one that's got maybe a week or two to live — if you can call standingin a bucket of sugar-water 'living.' What's in here that she doesn't have out there?"

Egon cleared his throat, faintly uncomfortable. "Ah...." He seemed inexplicably reluctant to voice this particularhypothesis, almost embarrassed. "At the risk of sounding maudlin, Winston, I'm afraid what she's after is you."

"Me?" He sounded both amused and horrified. "Why the heck would she — uh-oh." The answer occurred tohim even before he finished thinking the question. "Don't tell me: She's got a crush on me 'cause I fixed that branchthe vandals broke."

A sigh rustled from the tree, a cooing sound of adolescent delight that confirmed Zeddemore's worst fears.

"Precisely," Egon nodded, sympathetic. "All her interests seems to be centered on you, the decorations shethrew off the tree were the ones the others put on it.... I'd say there's no doubt whatsoever."

The man who had been singled out for this dubious honor buried his face in his hands and moaned. "Oh, that'swonderful, that's just what I need: a teenage tree-nymph for a groupie."

Janine giggled, unable to help herself. "Oh, I don't know, Winston. I think it's k inda romantic."

He winced. "You might think so, but what will Lydia say?"

"I'd say it's terrible," was Ray's opinion. "If that is Elanor, we can't just let her stay here."

"Why not?" Peter wanted to know, his sense of humor tickled by the situation. "It might be fun, having a stickyspook around with a crush on someone besides me."

"You don't understand. If she stays in that tree, she won't be around long enough to have a crush on anyone."

"Sure she will. I know I wouldn't kick her out...."

"No, but Nature will. If she's moved into our Christmas tree and abandoned her linden, her li fe's bound up withthis spruce, now, and she'll die when it does. Which means she's got about two weeks to live — maybe three, at theoutside. And they won't be very healthy weeks, at that. This tree's pretty much dead already; we're just delaying theend, keeping it in that bucket."

He said it without the slightest trace of humor; the others reacted with varying degrees of dismay. "We can'tlet that happen," Janine said firmly, "even if she did bust up all the best ornaments."

"Yeah," Winston agreed with equal, if not greater, fervor. "I don't want to see her die, either — and shewouldn't be in this mess, if it wasn't for me. But how do we get rid of her?"

Egon considered the question briefly. "It's not a matter of getting rid of her," he finally ventured. "We can't justdrive her out with the particle streams..."

"...not unless you want to break her heart," Ray added, "and dryads are so sensitive to emotions, that'd windup killing her, too."

Peter made a thoroughly indecipherable face. "So what do we do, find some nice male dryad and have himcome in and sweep her off her feet?"

"Hardly," Egon replied, "since 'male dryad' is a contradiction in terms. No, we — or, rather, you, Winston —have to persuade her to leave of her own free will while there's still time."

Zeddemore found that option acceptable. "And how do I do that?" he asked, qui te reasonably, he thought.

Spengler, however, had no reasonable solution to of fer. "I honestly don' t know," he admitted regretfully.

That wasn't the answer Winston had been looking for. He turned to the next best source of such ideas, a noteof pleading in his voice. "Ray?"

But Stantz, too, shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't know, either. I've never dealt with a dryad before, only readabout 'em."

This plethora of negativism drew a heavy and exasperated sigh from Peter, who was still a little miffed withtheir unexpected guest for bonking him with an ornament. "Well, isn't this just great?" he asked, his voice drippingsarcasm. "Here it is, almost one o'clock on Christmas Eve; we've got important guests coming in two hours, expectingto party, and what do we have for them? Nothing ready to eat or drink, a mess of sap on our floor and stairs, bustedornaments all over the place, a neurotic spud off sulking in who-knows-what corner, and a moonstruck dryad hauntingour Christmas tree. I don't know about you guys, but this is not my idea of a way to start out the holidays on the rightfoot."

"Is it that late already?" Ray lamented, checking his watch. He groaned, seeing the time, which Venkman hadundershot by ten minutes. "Oh, jeeze, Pete's right. We'd better get this place cleaned up and ready quick, or we'regonna have a lot of angry clients on our hands."

"But what about Elanor?" Winston demanded, squinting at the tree in an attempt to spot the elusive sprite.He didn' t see her, but she saw him and giggled girlishly.

"She won't die right this minute," Stantz was certain. "W e can deal with her after the party."

"Just make sure she doesn't climb down and start following you around," Peter warned. "Explaining Slimerto some of the guests'll be hard enough, and they know about him, already."

Zeddemore blinked at him, befuddled. "So how do I do that?"

The psychologist shrugged. "Talk to her. She's a woman, isn't she?"

"More like a gir l," Egon reflected. "She came from an adolescent tree, after al l."

"Whatever. Flatter her or something. Finish hanging up those ornaments and tell her how beautiful she is. Thatalways works on my dates, keeps 'em quiet for hours."

"Yeah, and that's probably why most of 'em never go out with you twice," Janine sniffed critically. "They knowa snow-job when they hear it."

He stuck out his tongue at her, doing absolutely nothing for the credibil ity of his advice. "Teenage girls are allimpressionable," he stated emphatically. "Besides, if Winston finishes the job, maybe this time, the ornaments'll staywhere we want 'em."

**********

Seeing that he had no better idea of how to placate a dryad in love, Winston decided to take a chance andtry Peter's recommendation. Steeling himself for the worst — talking to groupies always made him uncomfortable, andthe fact that this one wasn't even human improved matters not one bit — he collected the sack with their most recentornament purchase and went to do the dirty — or, come to think of it, not so dirty — deed.

Once he'd arrived at the foot of the tree, however, he found himself standing there staring at it with his mouthhanging open, feeling quite the fool. "Uh...." What did one say to a dryad, anyway, especially when they'd never beenproperly introduced? For all he knew, the sprite already had a name — which he didn't know — and would object tobeing called Elanor, though from the way she'd been giggling and carrying on, he suspected she wouldn't care whathe called her, so long as the name came from his lips.

Moaning softly at the very thought, he surrendered to the inevitable and gave it his best shot. "Ah... Elanor?"he began tentatively, peering up into the branches to try to catch even a moment's glimpse of her. "I don't know ifyou're listening, but this is me, Winston."

Another sound of spritely pleasure shivered through the tree, making the remaining ornaments dance andsway. Well, he had her attention — at least he was fairly sure he did.

He cleared his throat and continued. "I can't see you, sweetheart..." Oh, God, he told himself the moment he'dsaid it, that was a mistake. "...but I just wanted to say — Egon, would you mind going somewhere else for a while?I think I'll do better if I don't have someone staring over my shoulder while I do this, watching me make a jerk ofmyself."

The bespectacled scientist — who was supposed to be upstairs taking his overdue medication but hadlingered out of curiosity, hoping to get a look at the dryad — blinked at the darker man, his expression blank. "WasI staring?" he asked innocently. "I didn't intend to...."

"That's what you always say," Janine sighed. She finished cleaning off her desk and stepped out from behindit to herd the physicist upstairs. "C'mon, Egon," she scolded, "leave him alone. You can get a look at the dryad later

— after you've taken your medicine and gotten some rest. Remember, the doctor prescribed bed rest for at least fourdays, and you've spent more time out of it than it in, today...."

Her chiding and Spengler's subsequent defense were lost as they reached the top of the flight and turned ontothe second floor. Winston waited until he was sure he was alone before continuing. "Anyway," he said, addressingthe tree's unseen inhabitant while he hung the new ornaments, "I just wanted to tell you that I'm really flattered youlike me..."

A thoroughly girlish sigh of rapture thrilled through the branches, sounding not unlike wind in the treetops.Zeddemore winced, but went on.

"...and I'm sure you must be very pretty, as dryads go, but we've got some real important people coming ina little while, and I don't think they'd understand you not being human an' all, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd just stayhere 'til they're gone and not upset any of 'em. Do you understand?"

The giggly voice said no words Winston could comprehend; briefly, he worried that she might not understandhis language, either. But suddenly, in the shadows of the boughs and needles right in front of him, he saw a pair oflarge and distinctly inhuman, though very pretty, golden-green eyes staring at him, like two glowing lights. He couldsee nothing of the creature to whom they belonged, but their expression alone said volumes, being a look he'd seenall too often before, in the eyes of barely pubescent female admirers: unquestioning and unalloyed affection. The sightof her eyes and the sound of the nymph's delighted coo convinced him that she'd understood enough of his pleas tocomply with them. It also convinced him that this was one unasked-for situation he was going to thoroughly regretbefore the night was out.

Just as he was hanging the last of the ornaments, Ray and Peter came up from the basement with mops andbuckets, prepared to deal with the sticky sap all over the stairs and garage floor. He went to give them a hand.

"Y'know," he told Stantz as he claimed a mop, carefully keeping his voice low in case Elanor was still listening,"I'm kinda worried that she won't behave herself. What if she doesn't understand English? How do we keep her fromcoming out in the middle of the party if she doesn't even know what I was asking her?"

Ray didn't seem at all concerned. "She may not understand your words, Winston, but I'm sure she caught yourintentions."

Zeddemore grunted, skeptical. "I'm glad you can be so certain. I'm sure not. What makes you think she did?"

The occultist shrugged. "Like I said before, dryads are very sensitive to emotions; that's the main way theycommunicate. Most of 'em can pick up empathic emanations from the living things around them; some even sort ofbroadcast 'em back, as a defense mechanism. It's hard to hurt someone who's radiating really strong good feelingsas you. Unless you were yelling at her, I'm sure she understood what you were trying to get across, even if she doesn'tknow any of the actual words. And i f she really does have a crush on you, she'll do anything rather than make youunhappy with her."

Peter snorted softly from where he'd settled with a bucket and a brush, scrubbing sap-spots off the woodenstairs. "Yeah, and don't you wish Slimer was that eager to please? Maybe we ought to consider planting a tree herein the garage so we can keep Elanor and get rid of him."

Ray threw him a dirty look; from his reaction, Winston wasn't even aware Venkman had spoken. "So you'repretty sure she'll keep quiet?" he fretted.

"More than pretty sure," the occultist replied. "I'm positive. If you don't believe me, we can get a second opinionfrom Egon, or look it up in one of the guides...."

"No, I'll take your word for it. But I want you to know: I expect you experts to come up with the solution to thismess by the time the party's over, 'cause Lydia's coming to dinner tomorrow, and I am not gonna give my steady ladyan explanation for why I've got a nymph hanging all over me as her Christmas present!"

**********

When they were finished cleaning up the dryad's trail of sap and the remains of broken ornaments, the threemen went directly to the kitchen to give Janine a hand preparing refreshments for the party. Egon had said somethingabout helping out after he'd taken his medications and rested for a few minutes — climbing up and down the stairsseveral times in two hours had been more exercise than he'd had in days, and his lungs were still fairly congested —but even that short a time spent in a comfortably prone position was more than enough to send him back into a soundsleep that Janine forbad the others to disturb. They didn't argue, Ray and Winston because they thought Egon neededthe rest far more than they needed his help, and Peter because he didn't want to run the risk of angering theirclient/guests by spreading flu germs onto the food they were about to be served.

They made fairly short work of it, in any case; the bulk of the preparation was complete fifteen minutes beforetheir guests were due to arrive. Taking advantage of the time they had left, Ray and Janine cleaned up the mess they'dmade in the kitchen while the others ferried the goodies downstairs. As part of the cleaning effort, Ray collected allthe trash they'd accumulated and hauled it out to the garbage cans, scooting through the front doors rather than theback, that being the shortest route; it was cold outside and he didn't want to bother putting on his coat. Since the doorlatch was set to lock behind him (an instinctive precaution in th is neighborhood), he left it ajar so he wouldn' t have tofumble with his keys or bother the others to let him in again. He dumped the bags as fast as he could so that the doorwouldn't be left hanging open for long, and was back inside in less that a minute.

That, however, was more than enough time for a car to go by and slosh the water in their ever-present puddle.Though it didn't hit Ray, who was in the midst of closing the cans at the time, it did wash all over the sidewalk and lapup to the doors themselves, letting a small amount of water inside. When he returned a few seconds later, he noticedthe dampness on the floor but decided not to get upset about it. With that arm of the Atlantic waiting just outside, they'dlikely see a lot more water tracked inside before their guests headed home. As he closed the door, however, he didhear a sound that was both oddly musical and distinctly disgruntled, like a proverbial babbling brook with a gripeagainst Mother Nature. He listened to it, but it stopped a moment later, so he chalked it up to being a new quirk of thewater moving through the firehouse's old pipes and didn' t give it a second thought.

But he would have if he'd noticed the new set of supernatural eyes — luminous blue, this time, not green —that had watched him enter before they slipped into a shadowy corner of the garage and disappeared.

**********

After helping Winston set up a long folding table so that he and Peter could move the refreshments offJanine's desk and onto it, Ray was heading up to get the last of the stuff from the kitchen when he heard the soundof the front-door buzzer announcing the first guest's arrival. The receptionist was still in the kitchen, kneeling on thefloor and peering into the cabinet under the sink. "Lose something?" the occultist asked pleasantly, in a good mooddespite all that had happened to threaten the day's success.

She glanced up at him; he could see that she didn't share his positive spirits. "No," she grumbled. "First, Icouldn't get any hot water to f inish doing the dishes, then the b lasted garbage disposal decided to give out. I think it'sjammed, but I can't find anything blocking it f rom the inside, and the wrench for it isn't where i t's supposed to be."

"Peter was probably using it to get olives out of the bottom of the jar again," Stantz postulated.

Janine wrink led her nose. "That's disgusting."

Ray shrugged. "I think so, too, but that's what he always used back in college, and old habits die hard. Heprobably used up most of the hot water, too, taking his shower after cleaning off the stairs. Don't worry about it, Janine,we can take care of it later. The guests are starting to arrive."

She wasn't quite convinced that they'd get around to it after the party, and she found the thought of letting adisposal full of garbage sit all night long truly revolting, but it was their house, not hers, so she let it go. Sighing, sheclosed the cabinet doors and climbed to her feet. "Is everything downstairs, now?"

"Everything but the ice, us, and Egon."

"Oh, no, not Egon," she said flatly, determined to be stubborn on this account. "He's still coughing pretty badly,and he'll never get better if you guys keep letting h im run all over the place when he's supposed to be in bed."

Ray didn't quite share her adamant point of view. "Aw, c'mon, Janine," he cajoled, "it's Christmas Eve."

"Tough," she declared, crossing her arms in staunch defiance.

Conversely, he remained persuasive. "Don't be heartless. When you were a kid, didn't you ever have to spendChristmas in bed 'cause you were sick, while everyone around you was having a good time?"

Her stubborn posture remained unchanged, but she gave his question due consideration. Some of thehardness mel ted from her expression. "Well... yeah, I guess I did once or twice, and not all that long ago, either...."

"Then you know what it's like," he said, apparently pleased that she understood his position so well.

The sidelong glance the redhead threw at him was inarguably wry. "Yeah, and I also know just how muchEgon doesn't enjoy big parties."

"But how's he supposed to learn if you won't let him come?"

"You're reaching, Ray. It's only one party, and these are clients, not friends or family..."

"...but it's for the business, and all of us should be there."

That was an admittedly telling argument. It nearly got to her, but she maintained her resolve at the last second."The clients'll understand if we tell 'em he's sick."

Stantz snorted. "If we tell 'em that, they might go home instead, and then we'll be stuck with all this stuff onour hands. And we've been planning this for weeks. Peter and Winston would be so disappointed...." He gave her alook like that of a puppy whose feelings she had just mortally wounded.

She'd never been any good at winning arguments with this particular employer. Ray was too nice and toosincere for her to withstand for long, especially when he used the pathetic puppy tactic. She caved in. "All right, allright, I get the point! But everyone isn't here yet. How about if we compromise and let him sleep until all the guests'vearrived?"

That sounded good to Ray. "Fine with me," he agreed as they collected the last of the party supplies andheaded downstairs.

"By the way," the secretary's voice could be heard saying just before they moved out of earshot, "have youseen the knife I was using to cut the fruitcake? Or did Peter need something to use for an emergency screwdriver...?"

As her words faded into the distance, in the kitchen behind them, one of the cabinet doors Janine had closedcreaked open just wide enough to permit something small to slip out. Briefly, the same pair of glowing blue eyes thathad watched Ray's entrance watched their departure, then winked out of sight. A sound like the laughing of runningwater echoed softly in the kitchen, then vanished with a gurgle, as if it had fled down the drain.

**********

"We've got a little bit of a problem," Winston informed Ray a short while later, when slightly more than half theirguests had arrived.

From the man's somber tone, Stantz was expecting something of apocalyptic proportions. "What is it? A leakin the containment unit? Elanor crawling out and making trouble? We're out of ice already?"

Zeddemore quickly shook his head. "No, nothing like that. We're having some trouble with the plumbing inthe back bathroom. Mrs. Arbogast went to wash her hands, and the spray from the faucet got her right in the stomach.Pete says there's something wrong with the chain on the float valve, too; it keeps coming loose and the tank just keepsrunnin' an' runnin'."

"Did you check it out?"

"Not me, but Peter did, and he says he can't figure out what to do about i t."

The occultist made a softly disparaging sound. "Doesn't surprise me. He never was any good with anythingeven remotely mechanical." He sighed. "I suppose I could go have a quick look at it, but if it's something I can't fix ina few minutes, let's wait and call a plumber. I don't want to miss out on the party."

"Good idea. I'll have the guests use the second floor bathroom 'til you're done."

But the problems Winston had mentioned seemed to have disappeared on their own, or so Ray discoveredwhen he went to investigate. The faucet was performing as it should, sending water straight down into the basinwithout annoying side-sprays, and the float valve was working perfectly. Puzzled only for a few moments, Raydismissed the incidents as one-time flukes, and went to tell Winston that everything was fine.

Zeddemore, it turned out, was having a few minor troubles of his own. Though she had behaved herselfadmirably thus far, Elanor had apparently considered an occasional peering-out through the branches acceptablewithin the parameters of W inston's request, and the glowing eyes had not gone unnoticed by several of thesharper-eyed guests.

"I think it's really interesting," one of their prettier female visitors, a young and buxom blonde, was telling Peteras she stood and admired the tree (a genuine feat, considering her IQ and the fact that she was doing several thingsat once: standing, talking, and admiring). "Making it look like there're glowing eyes looking out at us from the tree...."She breathed deeply in appreciation, a truly impressive sight. "Have you guys ever considered going into specialeffects? I'll bet you could make a lot of money, working for Hollywood."

"Well, I think it's absolutely unnerving, not to mention inappropriate," the less attractive and much older Mrs.Arbogast sniffed, still miffed from her mishap in the bathroom and inclined to find fault because of it. "Things like thatbelong at Hallowe'en parties, not Christmas affairs, and that coughing-noise part of the effect is simply ghastly. Notkeeping in the Chr istmas spirit at all , I should say. No, not at all." She raked the tree with a jaundiced eye, wrinklingher already wrinkled nose at it in lofty disdain.

Winston caught the ornament Elanor hurled at her just in time and in such a fashion that everyone lookingthought he'd merely saved it from an untimely slip off an upper branch. He seemed less interested in this breach ofthe dryad's unspoken promise than in the society matron's comments. "Coughing?" he echoed, suddenly worried."What coughing?"

Mrs. Arbogast turned her haughty eye on him. "Oh, come now, Mister Zeddemore, there's no need to be coy.Why you can hear it as plain as the opening bell on Wall Street, if you stand anywhere near it. That horrible, awfulwheezing sound, like someone on the verge of pulmonary collapse. You must've known that it would sound like that— or weren't you in on the joke?" Her accusing eye changed direction and stabbed at Peter. "I shouldn't be surprised,were that the case."

Venkman refused to be intimidated, or pinned with the rap. "It's nothing anyone did on purpose, Mrs.Arbogast," he assured her with a pasted-on smile, trying his best to be polite, even though he wanted to strangle herwith the poor, dead, mothball-smelly foxes she was wearing around her shoulders, their little glass eyes giving himthe crawls every time he looked at her. "It's probably just Slimer, hiding in the branches and pulling one of his littlejokes. He's been misbehaving all day, you know, and I'm sure he thinks he's getting even with us for yelling at him."He patted the matron's shoulder solicitously (suppressing the shudder he felt upon touching the dead foxes), an Oscarworthy feat, considering how much he loathed the woman. "Just ignore him, and I'm sure he'll go away."

Mrs. Arbogast remained doubtful, but the psychologist had her sufficiently charmed so that she bought his lineand allowed him to lead her away from the tree to the punch bowl, the blonde bimbo in their wake. When they weregone and the crowd studying the tree had dispersed, Winston leaned closer to it, straining to hear if what she'd saidwas true, or if she'd just been hearing echoes of Egon coughing and sneezing two floors above. Sure enough, therewas a distinct wheezing sound coming from amid the branches, and none too quietly, at that. He'd heard breathingthat unhealthy only once before in his life, when he'd gone to visit his tuberculosis-stricken grandfather shortly beforehe'd died. His face creased in a frown; he stepped back and studied the glittering tree, concerned.

"Do you think Mrs. Arbogast is right?" Janine asked quietly as she came up behind him, having heard theentire exchange. "Is Elanor really sick?"

Winston wanted to say no, but he honestly didn't know what to say. "I don't know. I don't know anything aboutdryads, 'cept what Egon and Ray told us earlier. Maybe this has something to do with this being a cut tree she's in;maybe she's caught something like Egon's flu, and it's killing her. I just don't know — but I'm worried. I didn't ask forher attention, but I can't just stand here and watch her die, either."

Janine nodded, sympathetic. "Maybe you should have Ray take a reading. It might tell us something useful ."

He sighed heavily. "Maybe, but right now, he's busy with the plumbing again. Officer Stahowiak just got afaceful of water in the back bathroom — he's mad as a wet hen, and now the second floor john's leaking, too."

"Great," she groaned. "This dump's got a wonderful sense of timing, y'know? It couldn't wait until afterChristmas to start falling apart; it has to do it right in the middle of a party — and on Christmas Eve, when anyplumber'll charge triple, if you can find one willing to make the house call." She studied the brightly lit tree for a bit, thenlet loose the breath she'd been half-holding. "Well, I was gonna wait a little longer, but I guess I can go wake up Egonand have him come down now. He'd at least know what he's doing, which is more than I can say for Doctor Venkman."

The face Winston turned her was hopeful. "You don't mind...?"

She smiled. "Not for you, Winston. Just don't let loverboy there—" Her gaze flicked toward Peter and thewell-endowed blonde to whom he'd returned his undivided attention. "—elope with his lady of the hour until I get back."

**********

Ray, in the meantime, had returned his attention to their recalcitrant plumbing, the errant bathroom sink inparticular. Again, when he examined the spout, he found no evidence of a malfunction that could have caused theserepeated and untimely squirts. He removed the aerator and screen, checked them for any mineral deposits or otherblockages that might've been responsible, found none, and was about to replace the fixtures when some smallimpulse prompted him to look up the faucet itself, just in case. A moment later, he realized what a supremely stupidact it was, for the second his eye was under the spout, cold water gushed out, flooding his entire face.

Gasping and sputtering for breath, he pulled back, certain he must've turned it on accidentally by catching hissleeve on one of the knobs or some such — but this, too, was disproved when the flow of water stopped the instanthe moved back.

Briefly, he entertained the notion of a deliberate prank; the timing and duration of the water's release had beentoo good to be mere coincidence. He dismissed it almost as soon as he thought it when he realized that, on the floorabove, someone had just flushed the toilet, which could have easily caused the mishap by changing the pressure andforcing out water trapped in the pipe. "Must be a water-pressure problem," the occultist muttered to himself as hereplaced the screen and aerator. "Maybe I should check the pipes and heater in the basement." That certainly seemeda more mature plan of action than lowering accusations of practical joking against Peter in front of their guests, so,after tightening the fixtures and wiping off his face, that was exactly what he did.

**********

While Ray was investigating the water problem, Janine left Peter and Winston to hold the fort at the party andwent up to rouse their absent fourth partner. Egon was still thoroughly asleep when she arrived, curled up on his bedwith a blanket half pulled over him and his glasses tangled loosely in the fingers of one hand, as if he'd already beenmostly asleep when he'd taken them off and hadn't had the strength to put them where they belonged on thenightstand. She stood there staring at him for more than a fu ll minute, reluctant to disturb him. He'd looked prettyexhausted when he'd come up to take his medicines, and she'd been able to hear distant bouts of coughing that hadnothing to do with Elanor al l afternoon. He really needed to rest more than he needed to party — but as Ray had said,this was his business as well as his partners'. She remembered Elanor and how very sickly she'd sounded and, witha sigh, did what had to be done.

"Egon," she said, not very loudly, poking his shoulder gently to waken him. The method was ineffectual; notonly did he continue sleeping, he showed not the slightest reaction.

"Egon," she repeated, raising the volume of her voice and the strength of her prod by a notch. This time, hemuttered incoherently, coughed slightly, wrapped himself more tightly in the blanket, and turned over so that he wasnow facing away from her.

Frustrated, Janine frowned at him for a moment or two, then grabbed the top hem of the coverlet and, tossingaside any considerations of loving gentility, ripped it off him, shook him — hard — and fairly bellowed, "Egon! Did youhear me? WAKE UP!"

Her shout could have roused sound sleepers in California. Being significantly closer, the physicist sat boltupright, startling the receptionist and inadvertently sending his glasses flying. The latter hit the polished wooden floorand skidded for some distance until they came to rest under Winston's bed. "Wha—what is it?" he asked, disorientedas he squinted into the faintly lit room about him. "What's going on?"

Her wits back under control, Janine went to retrieve the lost spectacles, then returned them to their owner."Y'know," she observed, tongue clicking, "for someone who didn't think he needed the rest, you were sure out of it.Waking the dead would've been as easy — easier."

He slipped the glasses onto his nose without even thinking about it, then immediately took them off again,noticing even in the dimness that they were smudged. "Is that all you woke me up for, to criticize my sleep habits?"He sounded ever so slightly grumpy.

Between his unexpectedly rude awakening and his illness, she couldn't blame him for being less than perfectlypleased, so she relented. "No, and I'm sorry I yelled. If it were up to me, I wouldn't've made you wake up until you weregood and ready, but Winston needs you downstairs right away. There's trouble with Elanor."

He sniffled softly, wiping the lenses with a corner of the topsheet. "Did she start undecorating things again?"

"Not quite. Mrs. Arbogast heard the tree wheezing, and Winston thinks it might be Elanor—"

"Mrs. Arbogast?" the scientist interrupted. "Don't tell me the guests've started arriving."

She shrugged cooperatively. "Okay, I won't, if that's what you want. They've all been here for over two hours,anyway."

"They've what?" He held his half-cleaned glasses in front of his eyes so that he could squint at the illuminatedclock on Peter's nightstand. When he saw the time, he made a quietly surprised sound. "Have I really been asleepall this time?"

"You bet. And I would've let you sleep straight through the night, but it is your party, too, so you really oughtto be there for at least a few minutes. Some of the guests have been asking where you are."

He returned his spectacles to their usual perch on his long nose, which was currently a major participant inhis thoughtful frown. "Can't the other guys handle it without me?" he asked rather plaintively around a series of deepcoughs. "They enjoy these things a lot more than I do...."

"Maybe, but those clients down there aren't just theirs, y'know. The invitations they got were from theGhostbusters, not from Venkman, Stantz, and Zeddemore. You've got obligations, and—" She waggled a finger athim. "—it won't hurt you to do things l ike the rest of us, once in a while."

There was distinct skepticism in the way he raised an eyebrow at her. "I thought you were the one who's beentelling me all day that I'm too sick to get out of bed."

She harrumphed softly, deftly avoiding the guilt trap he was laying for her. "I still think so — you sound terrible,and you look like you're still running a fever — but if you're well enough to put up this much of a fight to get out of goingto the party, you're well enough to come down and at least put in a token appearance. Besides, it's not just a socialthing. Winston needs you."

"Why, what happened?" he asked, still not quite willing to concede the argument, but sufficiently interestedin the situation to ask. "Has Elanor been misbehaving in front of the guests?"

Her inflections and expression both turned somber. "Worse than that. We think the wheezing Mrs. Arbogastheard was her. She sounds real sick, Egon, and Winston's worried that she's dying. Would you mind coming downand taking a few discreet readings, just to be sure?"

Spengler weighed his personal curiosity about the dryad and her condition versus his general disinclinationtoward attending parties and the heavy congestion in his head and chest. "Why don't you ask Ray?" he ventured asan alternative. "He's perfectly capable."

"True, but he's busy trying to fix a glitch with the downstairs plumbing. It's been giving us trouble all afternoon.And before you even think it, don't suggest that we ask Peter to do it. He wouldn't know the meaning of the worddiscreet if the ghost of Daniel Webster came and hit him over the head with a twenty-ton dictionary."

"I wasn't about to," he assured her. He contemplated things a bit more, then sighed in surrender. "All right,I suppose I could come, at least long enough to take some readings. Give me a few minutes to clean up and getdressed first."

She was willing to allow him that much of a delay. "Need any help?"

The question won her the single most arch look she had ever had the privilege of seeing, even in her yearsof working with the terminally puckish Venkman; the tone of the accompanying remark matched it flawlessly. "I maybe sick, Janine, but I'm not invalid. I've been dressing myself for years now, thank you, and I don't think a few daysof the flu is qui te enough to make me forget how it's done. I'll be there as soon as I'm done, I promise."

She flushed bright red with embarrassment. "Sorry," was her brief and uncomfortable apology. "I'll see youdownstairs, then." And with that, she fled, before she could find new and more exciting ways of putting her foot in hermouth.

**********

After puttering around in the basement for a good fi fteen to twenty minutes with no success whatsoever, Rayfinally reached the conclusion that, whatever the actual problem, it was either beyond his amateur p lumber's abil ityto spot, or was being caused by something outside the firehouse — a fluke in the local water pressure, perhaps dueto a fire in the area or the break of a main pipe. He was, in fact, disposed to believe that it might even have somethingto do with cold weather influencing that blasted leaky hydrant. In any case, he reasoned that it was nothing within hispower to correct, so he gave up the quest and headed back to the party.

While he was in the process of closing up his plumber's shop for the evening, on the third floor, Egon hadelected to shower before exposing himself to the scrutiny of their guests. More than three days spent in bed with botha fever and a dripping nose was enough to make anyone feel terminally grungy and socially unacceptable, and hewas more fastidious than most. Leaving the water to run and hopefully reach a more comfortable temperature thanthe ice water that had first come out of the tap, he went to fetch a towel from the linen closet. He could hear the familiarnoise of running water singing against porcelain all the way down the corridor, but as he headed back, the soundstopped.

He found this unexpected turn of events singularly puzzling. Someone couldn't have shut it off during his briefabsence; the corridor being as short as it was, he could have seen if anyone had entered the bathroom. Then, herecalled Janine's mention of plumbing difficulties; perhaps this was somehow connected. If Ray had shut off the mainwaiter to fix a broken pipe.... But then again, Stantz was too polite to do something like that without warning people,and he was even less likely to launch into such an involved project right in the middle of a party, with guests in thehouse.

All these conclusions were perfectly logical; they also left the physicist with no obvious explanation for whathad happened.

Mildly annoyed — he hated being caught without some sort of hypothesis to explain even such a mundanelytrivial event — he did the only thing left to do: He investigated.

The tub, he found, was full almost to overflowing, in spite of the fact that he hadn't capped the drain beforeleaving. In fact, he could see for himself that the drain was still open — yet the water wasn't escaping through it. His

first suspicion was that it had become clogged and whoever had been responsible hadn't mentioned it to anyone else,but that still didn't explain how or why the water had stopped running — especially when he noticed that the knobswere just as he'd left them. Now quite curious indeed, the scientist leaned over the tub, on knee bent to steady himselfon the rim; watching the spout for any sign of change, he reached out to turn one of the valves—

—and in the next second found himself underwater, face-first and sprawled lengthwise in the over-full tub.And not through his own clumsiness, either. He had definitely felt someone push him at the small of his back.

Coughing, sputtering, and hampered by the weight of his now-wet nightshirt, Egon fought h is way up and intoa position in which he could breathe again. Still in the tub, he turned over, furious, to confront the wiseacre who'd doneit. "Very funny, whoever you are." He coughed out the words along with the liquid he'd accidentally inhaled. He blinkedthe excess dampness from his eyes so that he could identify his harasser. His eyes focused, though blurrily, since hisglasses were wet. "What do you think you're—" He choked — but this time, not on water.

Less than six inches from his nose was a sliver of something metal, long and pointed with a wickedly serratededge — and clearly aimed at him. Beyond it lay its wielder's eyes: huge, blue, inhuman, glowing, and narrowed withan anger as obviously meant for him as the unspoken threat in the blade.

"Mrrgraacch," it snarled.

**********

About the time Ray came up from the basement ready to report his failure, Peter briefly left the blonde objectof his fascination and approached him with news that rendered it inconsequential. The facilities, it seemed, hadstopped acting up. Not a single fluke in the plumbing had been noticed while Ray was tinkering in the basement;whatever unknown agent had caused it had apparently corrected itself, so all was once again right with the world. Theoccultist wasn't quite convinced that life could be this simple, not to mention this kind, but after contemplating thealternative — finding a real plumber on Christmas Eve — he was perfectly willing to accept the possibility of such greatgood fortune.

"How's Elanor doing?" he asked Winston after his short chat with Venkman, having kept tabs on that stickysituation from the first.

Zeddemore shrugged, casting the tree a worried look. "Not good. I really wish I knew what's wrong with her.I've had trucks with healthier sounding carburetors, and none of them lasted long, either."

Stantz studied the tree, but it looked no different now than it had before. "Have you tried taking readings? Thatcould tell you a lot, if her PKE flux is off."

The dark head shook. "I wouldn't know what to look for. Egon was supposed to come down and take a shotat it, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since Janine went to wake him up."

The receptionist, who'd been listening to them surreptitiously while collecting discarded paper cups, sniffed."He promised he'd be down after he got cleaned up," she informed them. "You've just gotta give him a little time."

Winston's expression twisted with doubt. "That was half an hour ago. If he was Peter, I wouldn't expect himdown for another twenty minutes at least, but...."

"He promised," she insisted.

"Maybe," Ray agreed, "but did you make sure he was actually out of the bed before you left?"

She blinked, perplexed. "W ell... no...."

He laughed softly. "Then I'll lay you odds he caved in and went right back to sleep. Oh, don't bother going afterhim," he told the woman when she looked ready to march back up the stairs and drag the physicist down by his heels."He doesn't usually ignore his promises, either, so if he did fall asleep again, chances are he really needs i t. Let 'imrest. I can take care of it."

"Just make sure you do it quietly," Winston suggested, deliberately keeping his voice low so that it wouldn'tcarry to any of their guests. "Mrs. Arbogast nearly threw a fit, thinking we did this on purpose, and if I hadn't caughtit in time, she would've gotten an ornament smack in the face, courtesy of our little friend in there."

The occultist chuckled, finding the image of the stuffy society matron getting beaned by a lovesick dryadperversely amusing. "Well, at least we know she's got enough energy lef t to defend herself."

"Had enough energy," Zeddemore corrected, worried. "That was forty-five minutes ago, and she's beensounding worse every second."

When he managed to slip behind the tree with a PKE meter, unnoticed, Ray discovered that his blackcolleague was not exaggerating. The sounds that had been only vague impressions of wheezing a while back werenow distinctly audible, an unhealthy rasping that rivaled the worst nights of Egon's current bout with the flu. He tookthe readings once, took them again, then took them a third time just to be sure he hadn't made any mistakes. Theinformation he received was the same each time, and it was far from reassuring.

"I don't know if you can really call it 'dying,'" he informed Winston when he was done, having drawn him intothe marginal privacy of Peter's office. "Supernatural creatures like Elanor don't really 'live,' at least not by ourdefinitions. But her energy levels are fading, and fading fast."

"Why?" Zeddemore wanted to know, his concern showing more than ever. "Or couldn't the meter tell youthat?"

"Not specifically," Ray admitted, "but it's...." He hesitated, thinking. "Remember how I told you dryadscommunicate by emotions, how they're highly empathic?"

"Yeah...."

"Well, I think the reason she's fading so quickly is because of all these people in here." He made an expansivegesture with one hand, indicating their guests. "Negative emotions tend to weaken empaths, and I'm sure not all theemotions flying around in here are positive ones. Just look at Mrs. Arbogast. She's pretty sour even under the bestof circumstances, and even I can feel how cranky she is right now, all the way across the room. Blocking out the bademotions is probably sapping Elanor's strength faster'n she can replace it without a living tree to sustain her."

Winston's eyes widened with horror. "Do you mean... our party here is responsible for Elanor gettin' sick?"

Stantz nodded. "You've got it."

For a long minute, the dark Ghostbuster simply stared at his friend, speechless; then, he shook his head inawful wonder. "Man, I've heard of killer parties before, but this is ridiculous! Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Yes," Ray was certain. "At the worst, we can tell everyone to leave, and that'd probably stop her deterioration,or slow it down a lot. The best scenario would be to get her out of here, convince her to go back to her linden. But,"he added, sighing, "since none of us know how to do that, and we can't very well kick out our clients, not after we wentand invited them, we'll just have to wait 'til they're gone and hope for the best. Just keep Mrs. Arbogast and anyoneelse with an attitude away from the tree, and try to think lots of positive thoughts. It should help."

Winston found their options no more appealing than Ray, but he, too, recognized the occultist's suggestionsas the only viable course of action they could pursue.

**********

While Zeddemore was cursing the lack of choices of fered by their current situation, up in the third floor bath,Egon was studying the creature holding him at knife-point. It was an attractive thing, humanoid in shape, fair of face,platinum haired, with four fingers, immense blue eyes, and sharply pointed ears. It was dressed in a short toga-likeaffair of supple blue and silver scales, and its gender — male — was not in question, even though it stood less thantwo feet high. How it had managed to topple the physicist, who was easily more than three times its height, was anobject lesson in applied gravitics. It now stood on the rim of the tub, holding its weapon — which Egon recognized as

one of their own kitchen knives — in such an aggressive manner, Spengler had no doubt it would not hesitate to useit on him, if prompted.

"Aangrrareetookh," it said menacingly, poking the blade at its captive.

The scientist's eyes nearly crossed, trying to follow the knife's tip. "I don't suppose it would do any good to askyou to point that thing elsewhere," he said drolly. In answer, the creature snarled and bared its teeth at him, but theknife did not waver. Egon sighed. "No, I didn't think it would."

His captor tilted its head forward slightly, peering at the human, then rattled out another string of seeminggibberish, which Egon understood no better than it appeared to understand English. When it was done with its tirade,they remained as they were for several minutes, a frozen tableau — until the physicist started to sneeze.

The creature took this outburst as some sort of threat and began chattering furiously, brandishing its weaponas it berated the man. Its threats and scoldings were useless. The water in the tub had been cool to begin with, andsitting chest-deep in it in soaked clothing was doing Egon's already poor condition no good whatsoever. He continuedsneezing and coughing, the creature continued snarling, and when the fit had passed, the human decided that enoughwas enough. If he couldn't get the better of a twenty-inch-high whatever-it-was without getting himself seriously injuredor killed, he'd deserve whatever he got.

"I've had quite enough of this — what?" he began, intending to rise — but the instant he tried to push himselfto his feet, he found that he could not. The water, which had seemed so innocuous only moments ago, had suddenlytaken on the binding properties of solid rock. Still cold and damp and ever-so-clammy, it nonetheless held him thereas securely as set concrete, and, try as he might, he could not move.

His next impulse was to shout for help, but the moment he took the deep breath needed to make his voicecarry far enough to be heard on the ground floor, a glob of water detached itself from the pool in the tub and hit himin the face, silencing him into a choking sputter. When he could, he tried again, with the same results.

Very suspicious now, the scientist looked up at his captor, who had withdrawn its weapon and was casuallywatching him with the smuggest grin in all creation. There was no doubt at all as to who was responsible for Egon'sotherwise inexplicable predicament. It snickered.

"Very funny," he told the thing sourly, then sneezed.

**********

It was somewhere in the vicinity of ten o'clock before the last of their guests said goodbye; even Janine'sclever tactic of pretending they'd run out of refreshments had had little effect in accelerating the departure of thosewho had no place better to go on Christmas Eve. Peter's personal interest had waned somewhere around seven,when his blonde lady-of-the-hour had gone home. Af ter spending fi fteen minutes or so trying (unsuccessfully) toimpress one of the prettier but more stand-offish women still in attendance (and almost getting himself in trouble whenher burly date noticed his attentions), he 'd decided the time had come to execute a strategic retreat to the privacy oftheir living quarters, where he'd be safe not only from brutes like her linebacker boyfriend, but also from getting ropedinto helping the others clean up. He had been in the process of excusing himself when Janine caught him and blockedhis retreat, leaving him no option but to stay.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," he said when he'd closed and latched the doors behind the last of their departingguests. "I don't know about you guys, but I think if we decide to do this again next year, we ought to make an effortto find a better grade of clients. If it hadn't been for Lisa, I would've been bored out of my mind."

"You can't go out and pick your customers in a business like this, Peter," Ray pointed out as he dumped anarmful of used paper-goods into the trash bag Janine was hold ing. "Ghosts go where they want, and we'd go bankruptif we took jobs only from interesting people."

The psychologist harrumphed. "Then maybe next year, we shouldn 't invite all of 'em at once. What the heckare you doing, Winston?" he asked of his darkest partner, who'd suddenly stuck his head among the spruce branches."Burying your head like an ostrich won't make th is mess go away."

"I'm listening," Zeddemore's voice floated back.

"For what? To hear sleigh bells in the snow?"

"No. I could hear Elanor real clearly, before — but now, I'm not hearing her at all." He pulled back to eye theentire tree, his features set in an expression of deep concern.

Curious, Janine cocked an ear. "He's right," she confirmed. "I'm not hearing anything, either." She paled asa horrible thought occurred to her. "You don't think she's...?"

"One way to find out," Ray answered grimly. He trashed his newest load of empty cups and crumpled napkinsand went to get the PKE meter he'd left in a drawer of the reception desk. The moment he turned it on, the otherscould tell that the signals it was receiving were weak. "She's not dead," he reported, to everyone's relief. "But she'dnot doing very well, either." He glanced at the tree, frowning. "There's got to be a way to get her out of there, to makeher separate from the host-tree. If we could make her show herself — all of her, not just her eyes — maybe that'd stopthe deterioration long enough for us to find a way to convince her that she doesn't belong here."

A faint moaning sound, almost like a shiver, ran the height of tall spruce. "Yeah," Winston agreed, "but firstwe've gotta coax her into coming out. How the heck do we do that?"

"Isn't there anything in one of your books that'd tell you how to do it?" Janine asked helpfully. "They showedyou how to talk to tro lls; maybe they'd show you how to talk to a dryad."

The three men looked at one another, then shrugged. "It's worth a shot," Ray conceded. "Tobin's'd probablyhave something, or better still, The Handbook of Faery, if we can find it. I haven't seen our copy around in weeks...."

"That big, heavy thing with the picture of naked nymph on the cover?" Peter asked, getting an immediate nodof confirmation. "I've seen it. Egon's been using it to press one of his fungus specimens. It's been sitting in the upstairslab since Thanksgiving."

"It figures," Janine said, shaking her head.

"No respect for books," Ray affirmed.

"Remember, print is dead, according to Egon," Peter noted with a shrug. "Even if he does have one of thebiggest libraries in the city."

"Well, don't just sit there, Venkman," Winston admonished. "You know where it is; go get it! The sooner wefigure out how to do this, the sooner Elanor'll get better."

The occultist coughed, an uneasy sound. "Uh... y'know, she might not get better, Winston. Dryads are prettydelicate creatures. If she's too far gone...."

Zeddemore's stern scowl silenced him. "I don' t wanna hear it. It's my fault she's here in the first place, and byGod, she's gonna get better! Now, are you gonna get movin', Pete, or do I have to drag you up there myself?"

Peter wasn't stupid; he moved.

**********

Rather than risk upsetting Winston even more by dawdling, Venkman sprinted up the stairs to the third floor,huffing and panting by the time he reached the door to their main laboratory. He found the book, removed the flattenedcross-section of some strange purple mushroom from beneath it, and was about to head to their bedroom and thefastest way back down — the firepole — when he heard sounds coming from the bathroom that his own heavybreathing had masked, 'til now: coughing and sneezing that sounded worse than Elanor had at the height of the party.He had no doubt who it was, having gotten thoroughly familiar with that particular brand of wheezing over the last fewdays. Though he was sorely tempted to ignore it, there was a particularly unhealthy quality to the sound that he foundalmost as worrisome as Winston's concerns for Elanor. Telling himself that he was being a chump, he sighed andchanged course for the bathroom.

"Hey, Egon," he called as he approached the open door, "are you all—"

He stepped into the frame and saw the angry little humanoid holding its weapon to the physicist's throat.

"—right?"

The thing heard him, looked up, and snarled. In response, water shot up from the puddles on the floor androcketed straight toward Venkman.

"Holy—!" the startled psychologist exclaimed, dropping flat on his stomach to avoid the unexpected assault.

"My feelings exactly," Spengler commented drolly after a particularly prodigious sneeze.

A second water-barrage came flying Peter's way; he scrambled to one side of the door, attempting to avoidit. It caught one lagging foot, giving the impudent Ghostbuster a thorough soaker.

"What the heck is that thing?" he demanded, ducking once more when an imprudent peek around the jambprompted a thi rd assault.

Considering that he was trapped in a tubful of cold water which was aggravating his already aggrievedcondition, Egon was amazingly calm. "I'm not entirely sure," he replied to his partner's question, able to speak withoutfear of losing his nose while the creature's attention was focused elsewhere, "but I do have my suspicions.Undoubtedly, what we're dealing with here is some sort of water elemental, though I haven't a clue as to his specifictype, nor what he's doing here."

Peter snorted. "I can make a couple of good guesses — like he's been getting his jollies messing up ourplumbing all afternoon." The sprite let loose with a string of unintelligible invective, almost as if he'd understoodVenkman's deprecating remark. "Better question is, why are you sitting there in a tubful of water with your clothes on?"

"It wasn't my idea, believe me."

Cautiously, the psychologist peered around the jamb; the almost immediate launch of another water-ballconvinced him that the creature was still watching him. "Well, he's small; can't you jump the thing while his back'sturned?"

Egon sighed. "Unfortunately, no. Aside from his apparent willingness to use that knife he's flailing around, heseems to have certain supernatural controls over water. I can't move my arms or legs. In fact, I'd have an easier timescratching my way out of solid ice with a toothpick — and a more comfortable time of it, too," he added as anunpleasant af terthought.

This time, the psychologist's snort was more closely akin to a laugh. "What'd you do, step on the little critterand get him mad at you?"

If he'd been the sort, the physicist would've been tempted to stick out his tongue at his beyond-sight colleague."As far as I know, I didn't do anything. He pushed me into the water, stuck that knife in my face, and has been keepingme here for the last four hours."

"Yeah, but why?" Peter asked — logically, he thought.

"I can't say for certain," Egon admitted after a moment's hesitation to consider his answer (and sneeze), "butI do believe our little friend here is trying to hold me hostage."

Surprised, Venkman took another quick look around the jamb, dodged still another water-missile, then blinked."Why?"

His partner's sigh was more than slightly exasperated. "I've already told you, I don't know. And if you'd be goodenough to quit standing there asking questions like a two-year-old, perhaps we can find an answer."

Peter grimaced at the crack about two-year-olds, but made no greater issue of it. "Do you want me to go getRay and Winston? We could always get our equipment and try blasting the sucker—"

"Not with me trapped in here, you won't! Just go tell them what's happened, and see if you can find somethingin one of our texts to pinpoint what this fellow is. Once we know that, maybe we can f ind a way to communicate withhim."

"Communicate," Peter grumbled with a shake of his head, having heard much the same story downstairs. "Ifyou ask me, I say the best way to communicate with these little pests is wi th the business end of a proton pack."

"No one asked you," Spengler replied bluntly, coughing. "Just do it, before I die of pneumonia!"

**********

Peter did as asked, but it wasn't enough to convince Winston to leave the ground floor.

"What about Elanor?" he demanded, not unexpectedly. "We can't leave her to die just 'cause some othersupernatural nuisance has moved into our plumbing!"

Peter was willing to humor him. "Okay," he said puckishly while Ray dove into the book he'd brought. "Yougo tell that to Egon. I'm sure he won't mind sitting in all that cold water with a knife at his throat until we get this otherlittle problem cleared up. But if he has a relapse or something, I'm not taking the blame!"

His remark had the desired effect; Zeddemore relented.

"I think I've got it identified," Ray told his captive friend once they'd adjourned to the third floor, all keeping tothe corridor walls so as to avoid the belligerent water sprite's wrath. "It's a fossegrim, a spirit that inhabits waterfallsand running streams, at least according to old Scandinavian legends."

"Waterfa lls?" Winston echoed, perplexed. "There aren't any waterfalls around here...."

"No," Peter granted, "but there's plenty of running water. The local main runs right down the middle of thestreet, remember?"

"He's kinda cute, but — hey, that's the knife I was looking for earlier!" Janine interjected, having managed aquick glance into the bathroom without retaliation. "Are those things supposed to be thieves, too?"

Venkman's nose wrinkled. "Wouldn 't surprise me."

Sudden inspirat ion hit Ray. "Hey, Egon," he called, ignoring the irrelevant conversation, "isn't your familyScandinavian?"

"My mother's side, yes," the hostage scientist confirmed around a series of lung-wrenching coughs. "Why?"

"Well, I was thinking maybe this fossegrim'd understand one of the Scandinavian languages, seeing how hispeople originally came from that part of the world. Don't you speak Finnish or Norwegian or something?"

"Norwegian and Swedish. But I'm not sure that would work. Whatever he's talking doesn't sound like anythingI've ever heard before."

"What've you got to lose?" Peter put in quite reasonably. "'Cept your good health, if you keep sitting in thatice water bath much longer...."

His point was well taken. After Egon made several failed attempts to get the sprite's attention using Swedish,he switched to Norwegian and finally received a response. The creature turned away from his single-mindedobservation of the door to regard his near-forgotten captive with wary curiosity. He appeared to be listening towhatever Spengler was saying, though from his lack of reply, it was difficult to tell if the critter actually understood him.

"That's a step in the right d irection, anyway," Ray approved, now able to peer into the washroom without fearof instant inundation. "Why don't you ask him why the heck he's been playing games with our plumbing?"

Egon relayed the requested query, and the fossegrim finally answered, using words distinctly different fromthe tongue in which he'd been snarling at them. After a number of back-and-forth exchanges, the physicist glancedat his colleagues, frowning faintly. "I'm not really sure I'm understanding this correctly," he confessed. "He's speakingin a very old dialect with other, stranger words thrown in, too. But as near as I can figure, he says he's from the littlefalling water, and is accusing me of stealing something from him."

Venkman clicked his tongue. "For shame, Egon," he scolded, head shaking but grinning. "Didn't your motherever teach you that stealing's a no-no?"

Spengler's frown became more pronounced, not at all in the mood for teasing, however amiable. "Very funny.For your information, I haven't the slightest idea what he's talking about."

"What does he think you stole?" Winston asked, curious in spite of himself.

Egon shrugged as best he could. "I'm not sure. That's one of the strange words I can't understand, and hedoesn't seem inclined to prov ide any clearer il lumination."

"Great," Ray groaned. "Maybe you should let us use the accelerators on him. Even if we can't trap him, wemight at least le t him know we can be threatening, too."

"You can't!" Janine objected without hesitation. "In a room that small, one wrong shot could fry both of them!"

"She's got a point," Winston confessed. "Are you sure you don't know what he wants, Egon? Maybe it's gotsomething to do with a job we had weeks ago — like catching that sea-monster spook in the Croton Reservoir, backaround Hallowe'en. This little guy could've been its relative or something."

"I doubt it," the physicist sniffled, but asked the creature anyway. It responded with a blistering string of whatwere clearly expletives.

Egon winced. "I th ink he doesn't consider the matter open for discussion."

"No kidding," Janine breathed. "Maybe if we knew more about him, where he came from an' all that, we couldfigure out what it is he thinks we've got."

"I've already asked him that, and he said—"

"Little running water," Peter interrupted, suddenly thoughtful. "Ask him to describe it."

Spengler's expression twisted with exasperation, blue eyes cast heavenward. "But I've already—"

"Just humor me," the psychologist insisted.

Winston fairly exploded. "Why?" he wanted to know. "Come on, man, we're just wasting time, here. Elanor'sdownstairs dying, an' you wanna play Twenty Questions with some JD water-nymph?"

"Fossegrim," Ray corrected.

"Whatever," his black f riend snarled, impatient.

"Just trust me," Venkman told him soothingly, undisturbed.

Stantz favored Peter with a curious sidelong glance while their fair-haired partner did as requested. "You havean idea?" he asked.

Peter shrugged. "Just a hunch — and a long shot, at that. But I figure nothing else has worked so far, so whynot give it a try?"

Winston could think of several reasons; he muttered them under his breath while the irritated sprite chatteredsomething long and emphatic at Egon.

At length, the physicist provided a loose translation. "I think he's saying that his home is a great river, in aworld apart from the world of Man, and he enters the here-and-now through one of their Temple Gates. And he insiststhat I stole his whatever-it-is from his Temple's precincts. Does that answer any of your questions, Peter?"

From the grin on the psychologist's face, it did indeed. "In spades," he confirmed. "Put away the accelerators,guys; I don't think we're gonna need 'em."

All three of his hallway companions blinked at him, surprised. "We won't?" they said as one.

But Peter remained confident. "We won't. Egon, tell our little friend there that if he puts away his knife and letsyou go, we'll take him to his — ah — property."

Now Ray frowned at him, totally at a loss. "You know what he's after?"

"Not for sure," Venkman had to admit. "But even if this doesn't work in the end, at least it'll've gotten Egon outof cold water."

"I don't think this is going to work ," Spengler announced after relaying Peter's statement. "He doesn't trust us— he thinks this is some sort of tr ick."

"Smart li ttle fella , isn't he?" Janine quipped wryly.

"Trick?" Ray echoed. "How could we trick him?"

Winston's expression puckered. "If you were less'n two feet high and surrounded by a mess of giants, wouldn'tyou worry about being tricked?"

"So tell him he can keep his hostage, if it'll make him feel better," Venkman suggested.

"Peter!" It was difficult to tell which of the others had spoken, since none of them found his remark to be atall noble.

He leapt to his own defense. "Hey, does anyone have a better idea? Let him think he's still in control of thesituation, if that'll make him cooperate, Egon. He won't be able to keep you pinned there, anyway, not if he wants youto show him where his property is ."

"But I don't know where it is!" the waterlogged scientist pointed out, rapidly losing his patience. "I don't evenknow what it is!"

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that. Just tell him."

Egon hesitated, still not convinced. "I don't think th is is going to work...."

"Tell him."

With a sigh and yet another sneeze, the physicist gave up and complied. The fossegrim listened intently; whenthe scientist had finished offering his — or, rather, Peter's — proposal, the sprite stood motionless for a bit, his faceset in a grim expression of deep thought. At length, he barked a short one-syllable word that seemed to be anaffirmative. With a motion of his purloined knife and a slight narrowing of his wide eyes, the creature relinquished hiscontrol over the water. Egon hadn't even realized how much he'd been straining against its hold until the fossegrim'sspell was broken; he practically flew out of the tub the moment he was released.

"Told you it'd work," Venkman preened.

Janine started to move to help the scientist to his feet as soon as he was out of the water, but a pointed snarlfrom the sprite stopped her. Before Egon could get off his knees, the fossegrim was straddling his neck like a baby

riding on an uncle's shoulders, knife ready to lop off the man's left ear at the first sign of treachery. When the humanrose to his feet, the water-sprite stayed in place, clearly disinclined to let his hostage do anything but carry outVenkman's promise.

"Wonderful," Egon sighed, feeling the uncomfortable chill of cold water as it slithered under his drippingnightshirt and pooled around his feet. "I hope this plan of yours works — and works quickly, Peter, or you're going topay my medical bills."

The psychologist remained supremely confident. "Trust me, it'll work like a charm. C'mon."

"Now wait just one second," Winston protested as Peter led them toward the staircase. "I know we've gottado something about this little beggar's gripe, but can't it wait 'til after we've done something to help Elanor? He maybe ticked off, but she's dying!"

"A sensation with which I'm becoming increasingly familiar," Spengler said so very sarcastically after a spasmof deep lung-wrenching coughs, Winston almost regretted having spoken up. The angry chattering from the fossegrimmerely sharpened his regrets.

Peter, however, intervened before the sprite started chopping away at the physicist; his grin was amiable."Don't worry, Winston," he fairly purred. "If I'm right about this, we can kill two birds with one stone."

Zeddemore scowled; Janine sniffed. "Bad choice of words, Doctor V," she chided, tongue clicking.

Venkman stuck out his tongue at her. "You know what I mean. Just give it a chance, Winston, and everything'llbe fine."

"But what if it isn't?" the dark man wanted to know, his doubts far from assuaged.

"Then you can shoot me," Peter replied with the complete, unworried aplomb characteristic of the utterlyconfident — or the recklessly insane. He crooked a finger and turned back toward the stairs, beckoning the others tofollow.

***********

"I hope this plan of yours is better than the one you came up with last week to flush out that spud in Mrs.Dumbrowski's stereo," Winston grumbled as they arrived on the ground floor, having left a trail of cold water andheated fossegrim babbling behind them. "Playing punk rock at it for two hours was not my idea of an efficient strategy— and I don't think Elanor's got enough life left in her to wait that long."

"Probably not," Ray agreed as Venkman led them across the room. "Are you sure we couldn't wait longenough to figure out a way to help her first, Peter?"

"We won't need to," the psychologist insisted, coming to a halt near the foot of the Christmas tree. He pointedto it. "Okay, Winston, this next part's up to you. You've gotta talk to her, get Elanor to come out of there so we can seeher."

The black man stared at him blankly, now tota lly confused. "Why? I mean, yeah, we know that gettin' awayfrom this tree might help her hang on longer...."

"And isn't that what you want?"

"Sure, but what's that got to do with getting that little whatever-it-is with the knife off Egon's back?"

"I'm curious to know the answer to that, too," the physicist agreed, winning himself a snarl and a tugged earfrom his captor.

"I'll explain later," Peter assured them. "Just do it, Winston, before it starts sharpening that thing on Egon'snose."

Zeddemore hesitated, reluctant to proceed before having at least some vague understanding of what he wasdoing and why, but Peter maintained his reticence, leaving him with no choice. He moved closer to the tree, lookedup at it, took a deep breath, then released it in a sigh.

"Elanor?" he called, trying to spot the glowing green eyes. "It's me again. Are you all right, sweetheart?"

A faint but definite wheezing came in response, a high and delicate sound compared to the deep bass ofEgon's coughing; several of the lower branches rustled. Figuring that this was where she was hiding, Winstonconcentrated his attention there. "Listen, Elanor," he went on, ignoring the five pair of eyes watching him intently frombehind, "I know you're not feeling too good, right now, but you've gotta pay attention to me. You have to come out fromthere, sweetheart. It's important."

A flicker of gold-green light among the branches let him know that she was now watching him, but that anda softly reluctant whimper was all the answer he was given.

The dark Ghostbuster winced. "Please, Elanor," he pleaded, letting all his genuine concern for her show inhis voice. "You've got to do it. It's for your own good."

Another sigh wafted through the boughs, breathy and unhealthy, but again, that was all.

Winston licked his lips, which seemed unusually dry. "I don't think she's buying it," he muttered to Venkman."How can I get her out if she doesn't even care about her own health?"

The fossegrim, who had been watching with as much single-minded interest as the others, hissed sharply intoSpengler's ear. "I don't think he appreciates this delay, Peter," the soggy scientist informed his partner with the plan."Perhaps a dif ferent approach might be better...."

But Venkman shook his head. "No, this'll work — I'm sure of it. Try harder, Winston."

"Try harder? How?"

"You know how to be charming. Give her all you've got."

Zeddemore had doubts as to the wisdom of using that particular tactic on an inhuman creature who alreadyhad a crush on him, but it was plain that addressing the matter of her own well-being was doomed to be spectacularlyunsuccessful. He pursed his lips briefly, then turned back to the tree.

"Y'know, Elanor," he resumed, adopting a considerably more beguiling tone, "I understand how you feel aboutme an' everything, but I've gotta admit, I'm hurt."

The sigh of dismay that wafted through the needles perfectly suited the sad expression that touched thedimming green eyes.

He pressed on. "That's right. Here you are, hiding in that tree, watching every move I make — and you haven'tonce let me see what you look like. That isn't fair now, is it? If I'm gonna have the prettiest dryad around living in myown house, don't you think I should at least get to see her?"

From the sound of joy that shivered weakly through the tree, his flattery had apparently worked — on Elanor,at least; the fossegrim continued to protest loudly, seemingly quite disturbed by these pointless delays. It did not,however, convince her to come out from the protective cover of the spruce. Winston could see her eyes flicking aroundthe room, from one to the other of the humans gathered behind him.

Comprehending her reluctance, he smiled. "That's all right, sweetheart," he cajoled and soothed, "you don'thave to worry about them. They're all my friends; they won't hurt you. They just want to see if I'm right, if we really dohave the prettiest dryad in the world right here under our roof. You don't want to keep hiding and make them think wedon't, now, do you?"

For a moment, there was no response. Then, just as they were all beginning to suspect that his blandishmentshad failed, that Elanor was not about to give up her new home for any reason, even to save her own life, the entiretree shuddered from top to bottom, as if shaken by a strong hand — or by the last throes of death.

Winston gulped, suddenly very worried. Janine knew exactly how he felt. "You don't think she just—" shebegan, unable to say the word. She shivered.

But just as belief in that fate was about to set in, the lower branches quivered. A few needles fell to the floor,and Elanor stepped out from hiding.

Whatever else any of them had thought she might look like, none of them had expected her to be quite sosmall. Scarcely coming up to Winston's knee, she was a delicate creature of ethereal beauty. Her fine hair — whichwas the exact color of linden blossoms, a pale yellow — fell in waves to her ankles; her skin was the color of lindenwood, a cream so light it was almost white; her clothing was a simple shift of gray, the hue of linden bark; and her eyeswere the same large and glowing green, the color of spring leaves, that they'd been glimpsing in the spruce branchesall along. All in all, she was a very attractive little creature, but hardly a suitable match for a fully grown human.

"So that's a dryad," Peter reflected aloud, his tone definitely on the impish side. "I've gotta admit, I've datedwomen who looked a whole lot worse...." He was shushed from several sources, not the least of which was thesibilantly hissing fossegrim, who was now quite agitated.

Elanor lingered near the tips of the lowest spruce boughs, clearly shy of exposing herself to the world at large.Trying not to seem aggressive or threatening, Winston crouched down before her. "That was no lie, was it?" he said,more to himself than to her. "You sure are a pretty little thing." She smiled back at him, the expression glowing butvisibly weak from fatigue. In fact, she seemed to be clutching at the branch-tips as much to keep herself erect as forthe promise of shelter they provided.

Zeddemore glanced up at Ray, who nodded back, having also noticed this physical evidence of what theirmeters had told them about her condition. Winston then glanced at Peter. "What now?" he asked, expecting newinstructions.

Venkman, however, shrugged. "Well , I'm not really sure...."

Sounds of exasperation and/or anger came at him from all sides. "Whaddaya mean, you're not sure?" Winstondemanded, his exclamation the loudest and most upset, causing Elanor to shy away slightly. "This was your plan!"

"Yeah, but...."

Before the psychologist could give any more elaborate excuse, the fossegrim suddenly stood up on Egon'sshoulder and, with a piercing cry that nearly deafened his hostage, jumped to the floor. Elanor — who had been ableto see nothing of the creature, hidden as he'd been behind his captive's head — saw him now and abruptly steppedback into the cover of the branches. There was no denying the expression of fear on her tiny face, nor the palpablewaves of fright she emanated on a strictly empathic level.

Feeling protective toward her since she seemed to consider herself his dryad, Winston shifted position so thathe blocked the path between the two supernatural creatures. "Peter!" he snapped, not knowing who else to blame forthis apparent threat.

Ray, however, had a more immediate plan of action than Venkman. The moment the water sprite hit the floorand started moving forward toward Winston and Elanor, he acted quickly, slapping the knife out of the fossegrim'shands and tangling him in one of the cleaning towels that had been left behind when Peter had called them all up tothe third floor. Furious, it snarled and hissed and snapped its teeth as it attempted to break free, but Stantz was muchbigger and stronger and, without a nearby source of water to use as a weapon against him, the fossegrim wasdefenseless.

"Gotcha!" the occultist exulted at he picked up the sprite, whose head was free but whose arms and legs werethoroughly immobilized by the cloth wrapped around them.

"Good move, Ray!" Janine applauded, glad to see the thing that had presumed to capture the object of heraffections himself now held captive.

"Couldn't've done it better myself," Peter added, as if he'd planned to do the same all along.

Winston, however, was more interested in the frightened Elanor. "It's okay," he soothed the shivering littledryad as she cringed in the tree's shadows. "He can't hurt you, now."

"I wonder if that's what she was actually worr ied about," Egon reflected, studying both sprites with such intensecuriosity, he no longer noticed that he was still soaking wet.

"Huh?" Zeddemore said, a frown of puzzlement creasing his face. "That's sure what it looked like to me. Youcan feel how afraid she is...."

"Yes," the physicist agreed. "But I wonder.... Why would she be afraid of a water spirit? There's no traditionalenmity between elementals and lesser nature spirits. In fact, since dryads are tied to their trees and trees need waterto survive, I'd think they'd actually be allies, not enemies. She'd have no reason to be afraid of him."

"Maybe she was just startled," Janine suggested. "After all, he did sorta seem to jump in out of nowhere."

Ray, who was still hanging onto the wriggling and spitting water sprite, looked to the so-called mastermindof this plan. "Pete?" he prompted.

Venkman grinned. "Just keep a grip on h im for a few more minutes," he instructed. "Winston, get Elanor tocome back out here again."

Janine favored him with a thoroughly bemused look. "What good is that gonna do?" she wanted to know.

Winston agreed. He had no better understanding of this plot than he'd had of Egon's reflections, but seeingno alternative, he complied. "Come on, Elanor," he coaxed in his best tones of reassurance. "He can't come after you,anymore. Come on out and let us talk to you."

The dryad demurred, her eyes repeatedly flicking toward the captive in Ray's arms, but, with a little morepersuasion from the one she admired, she cooperated. She took several hesitant steps forward, coming withintouching distance of Winston, but would move no farther from the protection of the tree.

"Okay," the black man said when it was apparent this was as far as she would go, "she's out. Now what?"

Peter had an answer ready and waiting. "Now, Ray, put the little guy down."

"What?!" came the exclamation from both Stantz and Zeddemore. "Are you crazy, Pete?" Winston added."You know Elanor's scared of him—!"

"Yeah," the psychologist conceded, "but Egon's right: Why is she scared?"

"I think that's really beside the point," his dark colleague growled.

"It sure is," Janine opined. She wrinkled her nose at Peter, who remained blithely unaffected by theirnegativity. "What if he wants to kill her?"

"I don't think he does," Egon put in , to everyone's surprise. "Look at him."

They did. To their even greater surprise, they saw that the fossegrim had stopped struggling and cursing sinceWinston had cajoled Elanor from hiding again. He was now quite still, watching her intensely, but not making theslightest indication of hostile intent. Not even h is expression reflected anger or aggression — more a frustrated...longing.

"Put him down," Peter instructed once more when they'd all fallen silent. Ray complied.

Once freed, the water sprite threw off the confining towel. He took three very hasty steps forward in Elanor'sdirection, but stopped when the dryad shivered and cowered behind Winston's bent knee. The creatures stood therestaring at one another for what seemed an interminably long while; then, unexpectedly, the fossegrim turned andstarted chattering animatedly at his former hostage.

"What's that all about?" Winston asked, his eyes narrowing with his perplexed frown.

Egon gestured for him to stay quiet for a moment; he listened to the sprite's babble and, presently, looked upwith a curious expression on his face. "This is rather interesting," the physicist said once the fossegrim had stoppednattering at him. "It seems our little friend here considers Elanor the property that was stolen from him."

"Elanor?" Winston, Janine, and Ray all repeated, incredulous.

"Just what I thought," Peter crowed quite smugly.

Zeddemore looked up at him in disbelief. "You knew about this? How?"

Venkman preened. "Hey, I'm a psychologist, aren't I? It's all perfectly clear, if you understand humanbehavior...."

"Yeah, but he's not human," Ray pointed out, gesturing toward the fossegrim. "How did you figure out he wasafter Elanor?"

Peter opened his mouth to provide and explanation, but the water sprite resumed babbling at Egon beforehe could make a sound. Again, the physicist listened, then offered his best translation. "He says that he's beenobserving Elanor from one of their Temples for some time, now, and had even gone so far as to approach her onseveral occasions — he doesn't say for what purpose — until he came to her tree two days ago and found that she'ddisappeared. Since dryads don't generally leave their hosts of their own free will, he assumed that she'd beenkidnaped. He was searching the area for her and happened to spot our Christmas tree when the door was open, sohe waited until an opportunity presented itself, and then slipped inside."

"But why does he think you were the one responsible for kidnaping her?" Janine asked, a question that hadoccurred to all of them.

Peter offered an answer without hesitation. "'Cause he's the only one of us who even remotely looks like thelittle guy, that's why. It's a pretty normal cultural bias."

The others found that explanation not in the least bit enlightening. "So?" Ray was first to ask. "Why would thatmake any difference. If you're talking cultural biases, here, people don't usually want go around accusing their ownpeople of nasty crimes."

Venkman merely grinned. "Not a crime, Ray; competition. Don't you get it yet?" he asked, seeing a sea ofblank faces in response — except, perhaps, from Egon, on whom daylight was beginning to dawn. "C'mon, Winston,you said it: You can feel that she's afraid of him — we all can — but is it the fear you'd feel about someone that'sthreatening to hurt you?"

Now that his attention was drawn to it, Winston, like the others, examined the empathic emanations Elanorwas broadcasting like ripples in a pond. "No," he eventually said, slowly. "It's not. It's more like...." He couldn't put afinger on it. "Like...."

Janine made a small, "Oh!" having suddenly seen what Zeddemore could not. "Like she's afraid of himbecause he makes her nervous," she said, understanding. "Because she likes him."

Ray and Winston both blinked at her as if she'd just said something utterly incomprehensible while Peter kepton grinning; Egon sighed. "Unfortunately, I suspect you may be right. Though I would prefer a conclusion based onmore rational scientific reasoning, I'm afraid rationality is a foreign concept to emotion-based creatures of this type."

Winston continued to frown, though the expression was lightening. "But if she likes him, why is she afraid ofhim?"

Ray shrugged, having had enough time to consider the matter. "She's young. This might be the first time she'sever been in a situation like this. You remember what it was like when you had your first crush, don't you, Winston?Heck, I was scared outta my socks that she'd find out and embarrass me to death. I'll betcha it works the same bothways, for girls as well as boys."

"That'd explain a few things," Zeddemore agreed thoughtfully, glancing from one sprite to the other. "Like whythe little guy's been making trouble, and why he thought Egon had to be the competition, if all his people look just likehim." He turned his regard toward Venkman. "But where the heck did he come from, anyway? There aren't any waterspirit Temples around here that I know of...."

"Sure there are," Peter said happily. "Haven't you figured that out, either? He said he came from the littlerunning water. That's gotta be—"

"—the leaky fire hydrant!" Ray suddenly concluded, having finally seen the connections. "Of course! A vastriver world beyond the world of Man, accessed through Temple Gates — that has to be the city's underground waterpipes and all the hydrants. And if he's been watching Elanor for a while, now, he must've first showed up when thehydrant started leaking, back in September. In his mind, her linden has to be within his temple's precincts!"

Winston listened to his explanation along with the others, though his reactions to it were far grimmer. "But ifhe saw her first and she was really getting to like him, then my coming along and fixing her branch messed things up,didn't it?"

Janine, who was closest to him, patted his shoulder sympathetically. "You were only trying to help, Winston.It wouldn't've been right to let her suffer; you did what had to be done."

"Then I've gotta do what's right now, too," he replied firmly, his mind made up. "She's gonna die if she stayshere, and even if she does like me, she really belongs with her own kind, not mooning over some human lug who wasnice to her once." More than a suggestion of befuddlement touched his features as he looked up at his friends — atPeter in particular, since the plan had been his. "But how do we get her to go? How do you convince a kid that whatlooks like a great deal isn't really so wonderful, after all? How do you make her want to go without breaking her heart?"

To his own regret, Peter could do nothing but shrug. "I don't know. How do you tell a kid anything? It's liketrying to shake some of those really tenacious teenage groupies we get. All I do know is that you've got to be the oneto do it, Winston. You're the one she's stuck on, and only you're gonna be able to get her to leave of her own free will."

Zeddemore wanted very badly to protest that statement, to say that since she was in a house that belongedto all of them, it was their mutual responsibility — but he knew that for the cowardly evasion it was. Briefly, he glancedat the now quiet fossegrim, then at the weakened Elanor; for more than a minute, he stared at the floor, thinking ofwhat Peter had said. Finally, with a heavy sigh, he raised his eyes to the dryad's.

"Elanor," he started, then stopped to clear his dry throat. "Elanor," he began again, only to come to secondscreeching halt. He just didn't seem to know what to say — so he decided to say whatever seemed right. "Elanor,"he tried for a third and more successful time, "I don't know how you're feeling about everything that's been going onaround here these last few minutes, but I want you to know I meant what I said. You're the prettiest dryad I've everset eyes on..."

A sigh of girlish delight sang f rom her; she seemed to draw strength from the compliment.

"...but I've gotta be honest with you: that's mostly 'cause you're the only dryad I've ever set eyes on."

Her coo of pleasure faltered; the big green eyes she turned on him flickered with confusion.

Winston's sigh was anything but delighted. He hated the necessity that was forcing him to do this. "Now, I don'twant you to go thinking I've been leading you on or anything, but... look, sweetheart — Elanor — this just isn't gonnawork out. I know you want to stay here, how this must look really different and exciting after spending years living inthat little tree out on the street, in this crummy neighborhood, but this just isn't the place for you. Can you understandthat? You belong with your own kind — people like other dryads, like that little guy over there — not with us humans."

He paused; in the momentary silence, Peter snickered to himself. "Jeeze, do you think we could use thisspeech on Slimer, get him to go find a nice family of spuds and leave us alone?" Without even bothering to take visualaim, Janine elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up.

Zeddemore continued, trying not to see the sad and puzzled expression on the dryad's face. "I don't want tohurt you," he went on, "but if you stay, I won't be able to stop what's gonna happen to you. And even if I could, sooneror later, you'd see for yourself that it just won't work. It can't work. Do you understand?"

From the look in her eyes, he was sure not a bit of what he'd said had reached her. He was about to give upand turn to the others for help when she extended one tiny four-fingered hand and tentatively touched his arm.

Is there another?

The dryad didn't move her lips, and the words seemed to echo inside their heads rather than in their ears —if words they could be called; they were more nearly emotional, not acoustical, resonances — but they were clearlydiscernable to everyone in the room, and just as c learly came from Elanor. Is there another? she repeated.

When he'd had a chance to swallow his surprise over this unexpected turn, Winston answered. "Uh... yes.Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. My girlfriend, Lydia."

Is she pretty?

He coughed. "W ell, I suppose that'd depend on your taste, but... yes, I think she is."

A hint of heartbroken upset touched the dryad's face; she seemed to wilt even more. As pretty as me?

That was a tricky one; he did his best to be truthful. "That's a hard question to answer, Elanor. It's like askingif I mean as much to you as your tree, or if the sun is prettier than the moon. It's all a matter of choice. Even if Lydiahad a face like a terror dog, she'd still be beautiful to me because of the way I feel about her. And I know that'ssomething you understand — isn't it?"

For a moment, the dryad shied away, her head drooping; then, she looked up again, seemingly drawingstrength from somewhere, her expression calm and resigned. Yes. You are right; the Feeling is very important — itis everything to my people, even Life. But I have been watching this place for all the seasons I remember. I have seenall of you, heard you sing in my heart, you were so nearby and lived with such joy. If you did not care for me, why didyou gift me with the Name? Why did you watch me from your seeing-places, put beautiful decorations upon my newhome, and tend my wounds when I was hurt?

This time, Winston knew exactly what to say. "Because I do care about you, Elanor — but it's a different kindof caring. It's what you probably feel for the sun and the wind and the birds and maybe even my friends here, but it'snot what that little fel low there feels for you — or what I think you might feel for him, given half a chance."

When he mentioned the fossegrim, the dryad glanced in the water sprite's direction; she blushed (an odd sight,since her cheeks tinted a pale spring green, not red). The fossegrim stepped forward to stop at Winston's elbow. Hestood very little higher than the man's bent knee; even the tiny Elanor seemed to tower above him. But this almostamusing discrepancy in size deterred the little water creature not in the least. Using a softer, much gentler voice thanthey had yet heard from him, the fossegrim said something to the dryad in his original incomprehensible language.As she listened, she flushed even more brightly and looked away, but she was smiling and somehow looking strongerthan before.

"Seems to me I'm right about this," Winston remarked, looking from one sprite to the other — especially atElanor and her visibly improving condition. "If this Feeling stuff is so important to your people, if that's what gives youlife, then don't you think you belong with someone who can give you what you want and need — someone who wantsto help you live and be happy?"

An inarticulate impression of agreement radiated from the dryad along with a very healthy sort of delight thatcame when she giggled at the way the fossegrim was looking at her. The water sprite took that as a sign of approval.He stepped around the obstructing Zeddemore, then took Elanor's hand and tugged gently, trying to urge her towardthe door and out of this human habitation.

His forward manner caused her to pale and hesitate, momentarily indecisive; she glanced up at W inston. But...she began, torn between her desire to stay near her benefactor and her desire to go with the water sprite, whose ownsupernatural emanations drew her like a moth to a flame.

Winston was not about to let her throw away her life over an attraction as temporarily glittering as theirChristmas tree. "It's all right, Elanor," he encouraged. "I know it, he knows it — and you know it, too. Look inside yourheart, and you'll know what to do — what you should do."

The dryad still hesitated. She looked at the golden-haired elemental, then at Winston, who smiled and nodded.She glanced once more at the fossegrim, felt the glow of renewed empathic strength, then reached a decision. Shefaced the man briefly and returned his smile. Thank you, her not-voice said quietly; then, she turned and shyly followedthe water sprite to the exit.

Ray ever so helpfully opened the door for them, figuring they were both too short to do it on their own. Oncebeyond the threshold, they began to revert to their supernatural forms, figures of blue and green light that rose intothe crisp winter air and danced in ecstatic circles around one another as they moved off into the not-quite-dark citynight.

The humans watched them for a long time, lesser lights among the flakes that were just beginning to fall.Eventually, they dwindled in the distance and were lost amid the steadily thickening snow. Winston sighed softly, bothsorry and glad to see them go; Ray waved goodbye, and even Peter rubbed one supposedly itchy eye.

"Do you think we'll ever see them again?" Stantz wondered aloud, breaking the late night quiet.

"I doubt it," was Peter's ostensibly careless opinion. "It's a big city, and once the DPW gets around to fixingthat hydrant, our little Romeo there'd have trouble getting to his Juliet's balcony. There's gotta be someplace Elanorcan find a new tree where he won't have to go around breaking fire hydrants every time he wants to see her."

"Which could explain why the hydrant's been leaking for so long," Egon reflected thoughtfully. "The city'susually very good when it comes to keeping them in good repair, since faulty hydrants can present serious trouble inemergencies. It's possib le they have fixed it, more than once, and the fossegrim was responsible for breaking it againand again."

"Which just goes to show you can't stop true love," the psychologist grinned.

Standing just inside the doors, Janine sniffed, touched. "I didn't know you had it in you, Doctor V," she said,still watching the spot where the dancing lights had vanished from sight. "How did you know that the fossegrim wasin love with Elanor?"

Peter shrugged, though he basked in the redhead's infrequently offered praise. "It didn't take much. You goout with as many women as I have over the years, and you can read the signs from a mile off. It's no big deal."

"Well, I think it was beautiful," she sniffled again.

"And I think it's getting cold in here," Egon opined from behind her, his own snuffles derived from a sourceless healthy than mere emotion and leading to a much louder sneeze. "Do you think we could close the door now,"he asked wistfully, "before I come down with pneumonia?"

Distracted by the more supernatural goings-on, Janine had completely forgotten about the ailing physicist.When his comment prompted her to look in his direction, she noticed that he was standing in a puddle and shivering,his wet nightshirt plastered against him like a second skin. She immediately turned solicitous. "Oh, you poor thing...!"

It wasn't in Venkman's nature to be quite so generous. "Poor thing? If you ask me, he's got absolutely nosense of romance...."

Ray scolded the skeptic with a tsk, being in sympathy with his blond friend's less than perfect condition; hewilling obliged him by closing the doors. "Hey, Pete, give the man a break," he suggested. "It's hard to be anythingbut grumpy after you've just spent hours getting all pruny in a tub full of cold water. Still," he reflected once the doorswere shut, "when you look back at the whole thing, you've gotta admit, it really was pretty amusing. Though I don't

know which was funnier: being haunted by a lovesick dryad, or getting pestered by her jealous pint-sized would-beboyfriend...."

"Neither," Peter was certain. "That prize goes to Mrs. Arbogast for having kittens over our 'special effects.'We've got to remember to invite her over next Hallowe'en. She'll be the life of the party."

Winston laughed softly, amused by the thought. "Yeah, but next time, let's get a real Class Five to do thehaunting, or at least something with more teeth than Elanor. The way Mrs. Arbogast holds her nose in the air, she'sbe sure to get it bitten off the first time she poked it where it didn't belong."

"Well, I don't think this is funny at all," was Janine's opinion. "That little monster making a mess of theplumbing and getting the guests angry and taking prisoners — especially not when it meant trapping someone who'salready sick in a tub of cold water for hours on end." She studied the damply miserable physicist, who was trying notto cough yet again and failing, and shook her head. "Come on, Egon," she sighed, catching his elbow and headingfor the stairs. "You'd better get out of that wet stuff and into something dry before you do catch something even worse.And I'll bet you're 'way overdue for your next dose of medicine, too."

Peter made a chiding sound as they started for the stairs, astonished that for once, Egon was not protesting."He's a big boy, Janine. I'm sure he can do it himself, unless you're just using this as an excuse to get him alone underthe — hey, who put the presents under the tree?" he asked on a sudden tangent, only then noticing the variouspackages that hadn't been there before, in particular those he recognized as ones he'd purchased and wrapped. "Ididn't tell anyone where I had my stuff hidden...."

"Neither did I," Winston joined in, spotting his own handiwork amid the others. "Who—?"

"Who else?" Ray offered, having picked up a package he knew was one he'd wrapped just that morning. Onehand came away faintly sticky.

Peter sighed. "Okay, Spud," he called. "You can come out, already. We know you weren't responsible for allthe mess."

From somewhere near the ceiling, a familiar burbling voice gave its equivalent of a timid, "Really?"

"Yes, really," Winston confirmed. "We know you didn't do it, and we're all sorry we yelled at you." The glancePeter threw at him bespoke his very strong urge to disagree with the latter part of that statement, but he didn't actuallygive in to it.

"Yeah," he added instead. "We figure, what the heck, it's Christmas Eve, and if we can forgive a cheekyterrorist water-squirt for almost ruining our party and sending Egon to the hospital, we can forgive you for being anugly little slime-bucket."

Ray, oblivious to the discussion and the little spook's elation, set down the package he'd been inspecting, andpicked up another with his name on it. He shook it gently. "Hey," he noted gleefully, "it's after midnight. Do you thinkwe could open 'em now — or should we wait 'til morning?"

"Are you kidding?" Peter laughed. "Wait? And have you tossing and turning all night? We may as well get itover with now." As he said that with adult disdain, however, he'd found a package marked for him and wassurreptitiously trying to figure out what was in it.

"Can it wait 'til we get back?" Janine called from the top of the stairs. "It won't take long."

Peter murfled suggestively. "It'd better not."

"No problem," Ray assured her, ignoring the remark. "It'll give me time to get the leftover eggnog from thekitchen."

"Weren't there some cookies left, too?" the psychologist asked, giving up on his unsuccessful wisecracks forthe time being. "I'm getting hungry...."

As the others traipsed up the stairs, Winston, alone, studied the now-empty tree. For a long while, he imaginedthe glow of gold-green eyes still watching him from within the shadows of the branches; the wind against the firehall'swindowpanes made him think he could even hear the rustle of someone moving amid the spruce boughs, but thesound soon passed along with the briefly lingering fantasy, lost amid the closer and more mundane noises of Peterand Ray returning from the kitchen.

He sighed, but not unhappily. "Merry Christmas, Elanor," he said, knowing it would be so for her, then turnedaway from the glimmering tree to greet his friends with a smile.

The End